Trade secret

KCR’s trump card, the Dalit Bandhu scheme, may tilt the community’s votes in his favour

- RAHUL DEVULAPALLI

KATUKOORI JAYARAJ HAS not forgotten the times he had to beg at a railway station for survival. “It is embarrassing to share this part of my life but it is a fact,” he says. Today, Jayaraj, 28, is small-scale entrepreneur in Karimnagar in north Telangana, brimming with confidence in his neatly pressed semi-formal clothes. And he has only one person to thank for it. “It is KCR,” says Jayaraj, his voice full of gratitude.

Jayaraj is one of the 38,323 beneficiaries of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s flagship scheme, Dalit Bandhu. It offers 10 lakh to every eligible dalit family in the state. Rao launched it in 2021, just before the crucial by-poll in the Huzurabad constituency in Karimnagar. It is being implemented across the state in phases.

The scheme seems to have hit the right notes in the dalit community, as they often struggled to raise money even for small ventures. Jayaraj said he was once kicked out of a public sector bank when he went to apply for a loan. Today he is the proud owner of a diagnostic centre, which earns him ₹40,000 to ₹1 lakh a month. And his marriage prospects have improved significantly.

Not too far away from Jayaraj’s diagnostic centre is Kalyan’s American Tourister showroom. It was the Dalit Bandhu cash assistance that helped him get the franchise. The annual turnover is about ₹70 lakh. Kalyan worked at another showroom of the brand for years before he started one on his own.