Team Herald
PANJIM: The previous government’s ambitious ‘Goa Yuva Samwad Yojana’ (GYSY), launched just before the State Assembly elections in December 2016 targeting the youth electorate, stands discontinued from July 1, within six months of being introduced.
The government claims that the scheme was being ‘misused’ by students and it failed to serve the purpose of promoting information technology in the rural areas.
GYSY, launched by then Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, provided free calling of up to 100 minutes and internet data usage of up to 3GB for youth in the age group of 16-30 years. In all 320,000 youth had availed of the scheme, which was supposed to be in force for three years up to December 2019.
However, late Friday evening, the beneficiaries started receiving text messages stating, “Government of Goa has decided to withdraw GYSY scheme which you have enrolled for with immediate effect from June 30 midnight.”
The messages created panic among beneficiaries, who received yet another message stating, “The Goa government is in process of reassessing the GYSY and in the view of the same, the scheme benefit will be discontinued from July 1, 2017. The scheme will stand inoperative until future notice.” The scheme was provided through Vodafone mobile operator.
When contacted, Minister for Information Technology Rohan Khaunte confirmed that the scheme will discontinue from July 1. “Government was receiving a lot of complaints from parents in the last two months that the scheme is being misused by students. There was also no track of students getting the benefit like IT and Digital India concept under the scheme. Hence, government decided to discontinue the scheme and to come out with a new scheme with a priority to digital literacy in rural areas,” the Minister said.
Khaunte said that of the 55,000 SIM cards distributed in the last six months, only 32,000 were activated while the balance 23,000 were not activated at all. “This itself shows the interest of people towards the scheme,” he said.
The Minister said the government was supposed to spend Rs 24 crore annually on the scheme, and even today it is paying for all 55,000 card holders. “The State is facing a loss. We don’t find that the Rs 24 crore spending was justifiable on things for which the scheme was launched,” he said.
