Telangana government is coming up with a novel scheme to organize youth into self-help groups to provide them livelihood through various schemes launched by the government. The objective is to set up SHGs for the youth in the age group of 18 to 34, years and keep them unavailable for the political activities by opposition parties.
State youth was the main army during the ten-year long movement chief minister KCR led to achieve statehood to the region. Whenever TRS suffered setback especially during the days Y S Rasekhar Reddy, it was this army that kept the T-flame alive. They were the force behind the Million Marches, Rasta Rokos, Vanta-Varpu on the highways. It is difficult imagine a Telangana movement without the un-named youth force.
After the formation Telangana state, majority of the youth are in confused situation. A fraction of the force has got absorbed into the government , while lakhs of students are struggling hard to prepare themselves for competitive exams. But, most of the rural youth is still remaining unabsorbed in any of the job markets. If these youth is left unattended, they may slowly gravitate towards activities being considered by leaders like Prof M Kodandaram.
There has been talk that Kodandram is planning to launch a political party. Now he has been working for farmers and studying the situation in the state if it is ripe for post-Telangana politics. Though Kodandaram is still not able to raise the voice against state government because of strategic reasons, he is unhappy that in the separate Telangana state farmers are not getting their due. This disenchantment may spread to youth as well soon. So, leaving the youth force unengaged in the Telangana state will have serious consequence. They become anti-establishment in course if they happen to become the target of the former Osmania teacher, who was the real field commander during the T-movement.
So, to keep the youth engaged in one activity or the other, Chief Minister K Chandraseakhar Rao’s government is planning to organize them into the SHG network, first of its kind in India.
To make this a permanent feature, the government is planning to construct Youth Bhavans in all Assembly constituencies. These Bhavans, which would act as nerve centre for all youth activities, mainly economic activities, on the lines of women self-help groups, will be constructed with Area Development Funds of MPs and MLAs. They would become loyal to the government as well.
Registration of youth associations would be organized in all the districts of Telangana from 22nd to 30th April under “Yuva Chaitanya” Scheme. District administration will organize this program.
Sources in the government said that CM KCR is keen on the organizing them into Self Help groups in order to provide tie them down to some economic activity with assistance from the government and the bank so that they would weaned away from political activities. For each such group one organizer and one Dy. Organizer would be selected. These groups will become a parallel force like women self-help groups.
