Nobel laureate Esther Duflo all praise for AP welfare schemes, meets YS Jagan

Nobel laureate, MIT professor and world-renowned economist Professor Esther Duflo has hailed the government of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for taking steps towards the goals of sustainable economic progress. She announced that he would work with the state government to eradicate poverty and improve the living conditions of the people and appreciated that the schemes being implemented by the state government for the poor are very good. She said she was impressed with the vision, knowledge and dedication on various topics. The team of Professor Esther Duflo met with Chief Minister Jagan at the camp office on Monday and discussed various issues. Chief Minister Jagan briefed them on the revolutionary measures taken by the government in the areas of agriculture, education, health, housing, women empowerment and the programs being implemented.

Esther Duflo said that CM Jagan had come to know the problems of the people at the field level with Padayatra and understood them and formulated plans. She said it is not possible to design the schemes sitting in a room. She said the initiative taken by Chief Minister Jagan to implement the schemes at a satisfactory level and leave no one deserving was revealing his great ideology. She expressed commitment to eradicating poverty and said that as part of the cash transfer schemes, the family would be developed in sustainably all respects by transparently depositing money directly into women's accounts and giving priority to women in housing.

She said it was a testament to the CM's vision to conduct a study and seek advice on the implementation of programs undertaken by the state government in achieving the set targets for sustainable economic progress. She said that they need not focus too much on what to do as the government had already introduced the schemes and would look into it at the field level and make suggestions for strengthening. She said J-PAL had been working in 20 states for the last 15 years and was already working on some aspects under the pilot project in Andhra Pradesh.

After the meeting with the Chief Minister, the Esther Duflo delegation met with the Chief Secretary to the Government, Dr. Sameer Sharma, and senior officials from various departments. CS explained the Sustainable Economic Development Goals and the programs being undertaken by the Government through a Power Point Presentation. Esther Duflo is the director and co-founder of J-PAL (The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab). The meeting was attended by Esther Duflo along with team members Shobhini Mukherjee, Kapil Vishwanathan, Aparna Krishnan, Kunal Sharma and others.