Women groups protest over poor quality Bathukamma sarees

Mahabubnagar: The distribution of Bathukamma sarees began in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district amidst mixed reactions from women folks across the district. While taking part in the Saree distribution programmes in Balanagar, Rajapur and Jadcherla mandals, Health Minister Dr C Laxma Reddy thanked Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao for his brotherly gesture to all the poor women folks by distributing sarees.

“We are extremely fortunate to have K Chandrasekhara Rao, who led Telangana movement as our Chief Minister. Particularly, for uplifting the backward Mahabubnagar, many gigantic projects worth thousands of crores of Rupees have been launched in the district,” said the Minister. District Collector Ronald Rose along with MLAs from Makthal and Narayanpet took part in the saree distribution programme in Utkoor and Narayanapet mandals.

However, in some parts of the district, women groups expressed their anger over the poor quality of sarees. In this connection, irate women groups in Wanaparthy district have came out in the open and burnt the sarees that they received. Speaking to the media, they said, “On one hand, the government is claiming to have distributed handloom made quality sarees to women groups, but this is not true.

We feel ashamed that the government is degrading the dignity of women and treating them badly by distributing low quality sarees. This shows the government is looting thousands of crores in the name of distributing handloom sarees,” said a women beneficiary from Wanaparthy.

Earlier, the authorities in the district distributed coupons to all the women beneficiaries three days prior to the actual distribution and planned it in a systematic way to carry out the programme. However, after the commencement of the distribution programme, most of the women groups expressed their displeasure over the way they were treated.