TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Government has sanctioned financial assistance to 3,416 truck owners and 168 mining workers ~ who had been left jobless due to suspension of mining operations since September 10, 2012 ~ under the Umbrella Scheme for mining dependents, Goa Electronics Limited said Thursday.
GEL, which is the nodal agency for accepting the two financial assistance schemes, said the disbursement of relief package has begun.
“A total of 3,416 applications of truck owners and 168 of other unemployed persons have been sanctioned for assistance. In all, we received 6,617 forms from the truckers and 1,841 from others who have been rendered unemployed due to the mining ban…” GEL Chairman Dattaprasad Naik told a press conference adding that the verification of all the forms received till July 18, 2013, has been completed.
He informed that by July end, the government will sanction about 5,300 applications of truck owners and 250 under the unemployment scheme. Those coming under the second category can apply for the scheme till September this year.
Under the scheme, a truck owner gets Rs 8,000 for the first truck, Rs 4,000 for the second truck and the maximum benefit will not be more than Rs 12,000 per month.
“Around Rs 1.5 crore allocation has been made to pay compensation for those who have been rendered unemployed in the mining sector while Rs 50-60 crore is allotted for truck owners,” he added.
The GEL has also set up a helpdesk to cater to the queries related to the schemes and specific applications. The call centre number is 2438844 and 8551833933. The SMS based communication has been introduced for the benefit of all applicants.
In the next few days, GEL will call applicants whose applications are incomplete, and help them to complete it for resubmission.
“GEL has also called the applicants to explain the deficiencies in their applications so that they can be processed for sanction after submitting the required documents,” Naik said.
