Still no clarity on who will receive ₹ 2,000 assistance

Complaints about lack of transparency in identifying beneficiaries

February 25, 2019 09:26 pm | Updated 09:27 pm IST

People waiting in queue to submit forms for ₹2,000 cash assistance near Kuruvikaran Salai in Madurai on Monday.

People waiting in queue to submit forms for ₹2,000 cash assistance near Kuruvikaran Salai in Madurai on Monday.

MADURAI

With complaints emerging from large sections of people regarding inefficiencies and lack of transparency in identifying beneficiaries under the recently announced ₹ 2,000 cash assistance scheme, the government appears to have begun collecting information from anyone wanting to apply.

However, officials said that there was still no clarity on who will receive the cash assistance. In few areas of Madurai city, there were also reports on application forms for the scheme being sold for ₹ 20 to ₹ 30 by employees of the Corporation.

S.S.A. Basha, who runs an eatery in Tahsildar Nagar, said that every household in the area were busy filling up the forms. “There is no clarity on who is distributing the forms or whom should it be submitted to. Nevertheless, people are taking photocopies of the forms and filling it up themselves because of the fear of getting left out,” he said.

He alleged that some Corporation workers, who were involved in door-to-door checking for mosquito breeding, were selling the forms to the households.

Stating that similar problems existed in his area, N. Murugan, an auto rickshaw driver from Bethaniyapuram, blamed the government for failing to clearly inform the people on the eligibility criteria and procedure to be followed for applying.

Madurai Corporation employees were also seen setting up camps in few spots to collect information from the households in the area. A woman residing on Vaigai South Bank near Kuruvikkaran Salai, who submitted data on one such camp, said that though she submitted the details, the employees were not informing her whether she would get the money or not.

V. Uma Maheshwaran, district president of All India Agricultural Workers Union, said that the situation was the same in rural areas as well. “For instance, in Thanichiyam village, data is being collected from every household by the panchayat staff,” he said.

A senior official from the district administration, overseeing the enumeration process for the scheme, said that the instructions given by the government in the beginning to officials was to use the data from the below poverty line (BPL) survey conducted in 2003-04 (for urban areas) and the participatory identification of the poor (PIP) survey conducted in 2013-14 (for rural areas).

“On top of this, all the households having family cards under Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) were to be included,” he said, adding that collection of details as per these instructions was already completed.

“Now, owing to concerns raised by people who were left out, government has asked us to do door-to-door collection of data from all households in both rural and urban areas, provided they meet certain conditions. We have been asked to collect and upload the data online. But there is no clarity on who will get the money,” he added.

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