Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has released Rs 590.91 crore to benefit 2,79,065 persons who had failed to get the financial incentive under Andhra Pradesh's several welfare schemes.
Chairing a high-level meeting here on Tuesday, the chief minister said the government was committed to ensure that the benefits of the welfare schemes reached all eligible persons. The amount would be directly credited into the bank accounts of these beneficiaries, he said.
Jagan advised the missed-out people to apply in a month’s time even though the scheme duration had lapsed. Such applications could be re-verified. “In June, we shall take up the re-verification of applications that come from January to May. Again, the next round of re-verification of applications received from June to November would be done in December. With this, all the eligible persons would get their due share of the welfare schemes, he said.
The CM said that nobody followed this practice ever in the history of the country. “We are keeping the list of beneficiaries for various welfare schemes for social audit in village secretariats so that the people could check the list to ensure only genuine beneficiaries derived the benefits,” he said.
Jagan said that, as promised earlier, the government remitted Rs 590.91 crore pertaining to 11 welfare schemes for the period June to November. This would reach 2.79 lakh persons.
“In the last 36 months, we remitted RS 1.85 lakh crore through direct benefit transfer for the benefit of women. In case of non-DBT schemes, like sanction of houses, house sites and for other schemes, we had disbursed a total of Rs 3.30 lakh including DBT and non-DBT in the state in a transparent manner giving no scope for corruption.
Praising the role of district collectors in the implementation of several welfare schemes, the CM said they were the eyes and ears of the government.
Drawing a comparison between the previous Telugu Desam rule and the present YSR Congress governance, the CM slammed the Janmabhoomi Committees of the past, which used to discriminate between people on grounds of party affiliation and it was also plagued by corrupt practices.
“At present, all welfare schemes are being implemented in a transparent manner by conducting social audit on the list of beneficiaries to help all eligible persons avail the benefits. As for the Janmabhoomi Committees, to get the sanction of a pension of Rs 1,000, the beneficiary had to pay three months’ share in the hands of the Janmabhoomi Committees. Such was the corruption under the TD government. So was the case to get sanction of a house or a loan on subsidy basis, wherein a huge amount had to be paid as bribe to such committees,” the CM said.
Jagan said that the YSRC government was not showing any discrimination towards the beneficiaries on any ground, be it caste, community, religion or political affiliation.
The TD government had offered pensions to only 39 lakh persons, the YSRC government is giving pensions to 62.70 lakh persons at present. The amount of pensions that used to be Rs 1,000 then has gone up to Rs 2,750 under the YSRC rule. This meant a 60 per cent growth in the number of beneficiaries and a 175 per cent growth in the amount disbursed, he said.
