AP chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy's received a setback with ministers blocking his proposal to take up Prajapadham this week. The ministers' contention was that they will have to face public wrath as none of the promises made during the Rachchabanda programme in January this year by the state government were kept. This is because the government coffers were empty. As a result, after deciding to put off his Prajapadham programme to a later date, Kiran Kumar Reddy directed the finance department to submit a detailed report as to how much money was required to fulfill the promises made during the Rachchbanda.

During Rachchabanda, the state government received 32 lakh applications for new ration cards, 10.5 lakh applications for sanction of social security pensions and 14 lakh applications for allotment of pucca houses. Till date, not even one new ration card has been issued and according to sources, that will happen only after completion of the Aadhar exercise. With regard to pensions, till date, 444 pension applications have been cleared. As far as housing requests were concerned, not a single application seeking pucca houses has been cleared.

According to sources the state needs about 5000 crores to clear all these applications. The ministers are said to have told the chief minister that holding a meet-the-people programme at this juncture would become highly embarrassing for the state government and even hinted that they were not prepared to accompany him in case he decided to go ahead with Prajapadham.