Goa govt to scrutinise payments under 'Grih Adhar' scheme

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday said a scrutiny of payments made under the anti-inflation 'Grih Adhar' scheme for women would be done and money will be recovered from illegal beneficiaries.

The state women and child development department, which is the implementing agency for the scheme, has been asked to conduct a scrutiny of all beneficiaries, he said.

"If we find that any person has illegally taken benefit of the scheme, then a process would be initiated to recover the money paid to that person," Sawant said.

He said the 'Grih Adhar' scheme was supposed to cover 1.5 lakh beneficiaries, but it has already exceeded its limit even as 17,000 applications have been declared invalid.

Wives of government servants are not eligible to claim benefit of the scheme, and those whose family's annual income is more than Rs three lakh are also not entitled to be covered under it, he said.

The scheme was introduced by former chief minister Manohar Parrikar in 2013, with an aim to off-set the impact created due to price rise and provide support to housewives from middle, lower and poor sections of the society.

Under the scheme, the state pays Rs 2,000 every month to the beneficiary.

Sawant said around 22,000 fresh applications seeking to avail benefits of the scheme were pending, and they will be cleared in a phased manner from next year onwards.

"We will scrutinise the applications and the first lot of 5,000 applications from the pending 22,000 would be cleared in January 2020," he said.

Another 5,000 applications would be cleared in February and a similar number in March, he said.

"The entire pendency would be cleared by April 2020," he said.

Sawant said the government has already appealed to the illegal beneficiaries to surrender their claims so that genuine persons can avail benefits of the scheme.