When Kokkula Satyanarayana sent a heart-wrenching SoS over WhatsApp to Minister KTR, pleading his situation to be redressed, he did not expect that things would turn around for the better so quickly.
The 48 year old handloom weaver from Mothkur in the Yadadri district of Telangana had been under severe debts for nearly a decade. Despite the skilled artisan output that his occupation delivers, Satyanarayana has been unable to make ends meet. Successive governments over the years had failed to take notice of the weaver community’s plight which pushed many of them to the edges of despair.
With a burdened heart, he took to Whatsapp, detailing every issue to Minister K T Rama Rao. Little did he know that this action would change the fate of his and 40 other families around him.
What he though would never to happen, did happen, turning things turned around for good.
Despite being in the midst of hectic Assembly sessions, Minister K T Rama Rao saw the WhatsApp message and responded immediately. While en route to the airport for an official visit to South Korea and Japan, he instructed officials to visit the weaver and his community and to make sure their requirements were met.
K Satyanarayana and his family were pleasantly surprised by the prompt response from the government officials.
K T Rama Rao instructed TSCO (the Telangana State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society) to purchase 155 hand woven sarees from Markandeya Handloom Cooperative Society, a local weaver’s organisation that K Satyanarayana belonged to.
Minister also gave an assurance that the weavers in Telangana shall, henceforth be able to sell their handloom products to TSCO.
Satyanarayana and others among his organisation were gratefully indebted to the Government of Telangana and to Minister K T Rama Rao for taking up their cause with no delay.
Speaking to Mission Telangana, a teary eyed Satyanarayana, father of two children, said they were prepared to take up fatal measures for they could not bear the plight they were in.
“No one would expect the officials to redress cases as swiftly as Minister KTR has done. Who would even imagine that such a busy man would take care and pay personal attention to my problem. Several years of waiting had turned us all into cynics. But our Minister KTR has dispelled all these notions for us by doing the needful. He has indeed done the impossible.”
Minister KT Rama Rao has been advocating a radical change in the government’s policy outlook towards the artisans of Telangana. The newly formed TSCO, a brainchild of KT Rama Rao, is poised to revamp the state of handlooms and weavers in Telangana by introducing several measures such as direct procurement and from the weavers, aggressive promotion and government assistance etc.
It is no surprise therefore that K Satyanarayana and his community are a happy lot now and eagerly await the Minister, hoping to drape him with a small albeit proud token of respect.