VIBHA VERMA

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PANJIM: An ongoing audit by the Goa government has found that around 8,000-10,000 ineligible beneficiaries were enjoying benefits of the BJP-led coalition’s pet scheme Griha Aadhar (GA). These beneficiaries are either dead, have migrated elsewhere, not cooperated with the survey or remained unavailable at the given address. 

The joint survey by the Department of Women & Child Development and the Goa Electronics Limited has also unearthed doubtful GA beneficiaries and households availing double benefits. Doling out the monthly benefit has cost the exchequer several crores of rupees since the scheme’s inception in 2012.   

Exclusive details accessed by Herald reveal that out of the 1.29 lakh women beneficiaries, 59,054 are ‘genuine,’ 4,360 are doubtful cases while 4,468 have requested the government to allow them to withdraw from the scheme. As on September 2, 2018 there were another 52,197 beneficiaries yet to be surveyed for their authenticity. 

The scheme has been stopped to 321 dead beneficiaries and another 927 

beneficiaries who refused to cooperate with the surveying team saw their funds being stopped immediately. The data further reveals that 718 and 259 beneficiaries have respectively migrated abroad or within the country. The monthly dole to the migrated category has also been stopped, while those who have shifted their residential address within the State have been issued notices to reply within 60 days.

In a second survey for beneficiaries who were unavailable, 1,722 houses were still found closed, 639 were not available, 927 did not cooperate and 4,473 houses were not traceable at the given location.

“Unworthy beneficiaries coming under the categories of doubtful, not found at the given location, shifting within Goa and doubtful categories are issued notices to revert within 60 days failing which we are discontinuing the scheme. Those in a rather grievous category are instantly exempted from the scheme. The recovery from the ineligible/unworthy beneficiaries is also in the process,” said an officer seeking anonymity. The scheme, started in 2012 for women with family income of less than Rs 3 lakh, was essentially to fight inflation.

Interestingly, unlike Social Welfare Department that slaps 8 percent interest to the principal amount of its scheme for recovery, WCD’s recovery restricts to the principal amount only. However, among the undeserving category who also availed Dayanand Social Security pension, will see their second scheme stopped until they pay the dues back to the WCD.

WCD Minister Vishwajit Rane, who is monitoring the matter through WCD Director Deepak Desai and his team, had recently stated that the government is conducting a survey to check if the scheme for women with financial assistance is positively impacting Goan families.

To stop reoccurrence of the faults, WCD is now contemplating to introduce bio-metric system and has decided to conduct a thorough check of pending proposals before allowing the scheme to the concerned applicants

“We are ensuring that ineligible beneficiaries are weeded out and the money is reverted to the State. We are making every effort to ensure public money does not go waste,” Desai told Herald.

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Social Welfare Dept awaiting GEL figures 

Department of Social Welfare, which already has over 25,000 unscrupulous pensioners to its schemes, is awaiting official figures from Goa Electronics Limited to identify the total number of persons cheating the exchequer. The department had detected thousands of fake beneficiaries, including government servants, a couple of years ago from whom recovery with an interest of 8 percent was made. Last year, over 100 government servants – availing the scheme despite not being entitled to – were issued notices by the department.