Documents accessed by Hindustan Times show that the Social Welfare Department has failed to spend even a single penny on several schemes in the first seven months of this year, leading to all round failure in providing relief to vulnerable sections of society.
The department has funds to provide scholarship to 800 disabled persons a year. In the first seven months of the financial year, however, no one has actually got the benefit.
The disabled unfriendly bureaucracy of the state government has another disgrace to its name. It has to give unemployment allowance to 2,380 disabled persons but has failed to identify even a single person so far.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Most of the government schemes have failed to reach the intended beneficiaries. The department is supposed to provide financial assistance to 3,750 widows but again has failed to give a single assistance. The department has to set up 10 juvenile shelter homes but seven months have lapsed in the year and none has been set up so far.
There are several other areas where the Social Welfare Department has failed miserably. A primary school for the deaf is to be built at Nehru Vihar.
The status report shows that so far, the work has not been initiated and no money has been spent at all. The other schemes where no money has been spent and no work done, despite a financial sanction, include development programme for the mentally retarded and national programme for the rehabilitation of persons with disabilities.
A halfway home was supposed to be built for the improved mental patients, discharged from IHBAS at Shahdara. The work is still to be initiated. The development of Tahirpur leprosy complex and development of Sewa Kuteer complex for the visually challenged too faced a roadblock.
Old age homes for which Rs 4.5 crore has been sanctioned remains unutilised. The list with the HT shows there are a large number of schemes in which not even a single penny has been spent in the financial year.
“In about four remaining months of the financial year, officials will hurry to spend the money and will come up with ill-conceived schemes and give dole to those who do not need assistance at all. It’s a dismal picture,” said a senior official, who did not wish to be named.
When contacted, Social Welfare Minister Yoganand Shastri said responsibility would be fixed, if laxity was found on the part of the officials in implementing the schemes of the government. “We would ensure that in the remaining months, the schemes conceptualised by the government gets implemented,” said Shastri.
Source: Hindustan Times
By Amitabh Shukla
http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/155453/1/6869
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
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