Team Herald
MARGAO: The Women and Child Welfare department apparently does not follow a proper system in approving applications for the Griha Adhar Scheme whereby housewives get an allowance to tide over the price rise.
For example, of the 21 applications submitted from Chandor in August last year only three have been approved while two have been marked to the department because there was something lacking while the 16 are languishing in the department despite they being “As Per Scheme”.
The applications are first scrutinized by Goa Electronics which checks if all the required documents are attached and if the application is “As per Scheme” or “APS” as they term it. The application is then forwarded to the department for sanctioning.
It is here that something is apparently going wrong as applications processed even before the three sanctioned one are still languishing in the department while the three appear to have been selectively approved to avail the benefit.
Neeta Naik form Women and Child Department said they have stopped sanctioning any applications now as the whole scheme is under review and added that it would recommence once the review is complete.
“The chief minister has put a cap on the beneficiaries and we have already touched the cap mark; therefore, we are not even accepting any applications right now,” she said while asserting that there was no hanky panky in sanctioning the applications.
However, Guirdolim Deputy Sarpanch Franky Rodrigues asserted that the department was being selective in sanctioning the applications. He said of the three applications sanctioned from Guirdolim one was a Hindu, one a Muslim and one a Catholic whose religion in the application was written Hindu by mistake.
“All the other 18 applications pending with the department belong to Roman Catholic women and only they have not been sanctioned,” he said implying that the BJP government was selectively giving the benefit of government schemes to only certain community members.
