Haryana govt asks banks to speed up work on social sec schemes

The Haryana government today expressed dissatisfaction over the "slow pace" of work by banks regarding electronic transfer of social security benefits to beneficiaries' accounts in the state.
In a State Level Bankers Committee meeting for Haryana here, Haryana Director General, Social Justice & Empowerment Ashok Yadav said only 6.5 lakh accounts have been opened so far and uploaded on department's website as against 11.5 lakh accounts was to be opened in the first phase.
Haryana has about 23 lakh beneficiaries for 8 social security schemes including old age samman scheme, widow pension, disability pension, Ladli social security allowance with a total budget of Rs 3,100 crore.

"We have observed that excess time is being taken by banks for uploading data on department's website which is hampering the process," he said while addressing the SLBC here today, asking the bankers to speed up the work in this regard to facilitate beneficiaries.
He further said that Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has also expressed concern over the excess time being taken on social security schemes by banks and Khattar has also desired that the work in this regard should be over before August 15.
Earlier, it was to be completed by June.

He further said that discrepancies had also been found in uploading of data pertaining to beneficiaries by banks, which was further slowing the over all progress on this project.

The Director General further pointed out that out of 1,212 Banking Correspondents agents (BCA) working for banks, many of them had left the job and some of them were not working for giving social security pension to beneficiaries.
Moreover, 4,000 villages in the state have not been covered by the BCA, he said.
Meanwhile, Haryana Industry secretary Devender Singh said that the state government was creating a state resident database which will provide information about every citizen in the state.
"State government is taking a major initiative of creating a state resident data base probably unique in the country..May be the first state to do it. You will have a social security number of every citizen, having information about all government schemes, property details, banks loans and other useful data. It will have complete information about citizens who will be duly identified through Aadhar numberts," said Singh.