The government also came under fire for threatening to withdraw the financial assistance if the beneficiaries do not reply along with certain documents within the time frame.
While Congres MLA Reginaldo Lourenco demanded at a media briefing immediate withdrawal of the show cause notices, Navelim Civic and consumer forum has questioned the rationale behind the Social welfare department’s move to withdraw the financial assistance citing migration.
NCCF Secretary Joseph Vaz took exception to the use of the word migrated in the show cause notice.
“A lot of Goans are migrating using Portuguese Passport, but surely you don’t expect these Senior Citizens many of whom are disabled to migrate at this age. Instead of harassing genuine Goans it would be better to target many of the non-Goans from across the border, who have submitted fake documents to get Ration cards and other documents to avail the many benefits of the Goa Government, which is our Tax payers money”, Joseph said.
Both Reginaldo and Joseph said the whole exercise is harassment for genuine Goan Senior Citizens and differently abled persons.
It is a big trouble procuring the same documents submitted earlier which includes visiting different Government offices, running from pillar to post to get the documents on time, that also after several visits. It is also an additional financial burden to prepare the Affidavits. On the other side Government official’s time is also wasted to do additional work of preparing documents again which were submitted earlier, Joseph said, while demanding withdrawal of the show cause notice.
Reginaldo, on the other hand, demanded that the process of asking proof of age, 15 years residence certificate issued by the Mamlatdar and income certificate issued by panchayat should be immediately stopped and these beneficiaries, who have been listed as migrated should instead be asked to submit the Life Certificate considering their advanced age and disability to move without physical support.
