PANAJI
Days after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced that pending payments of all social welfare and other direct cash benefit schemes of the beneficiaries will be paid out by September 15 ahead of Ganesh Chathurti festival, officials of the Finance Department are racing against time to fulfil the assurance.
The Dayanand Social Security Scheme (DSSS) alone has payments of the beneficiaries since the month of June pending and it amounts to nearly Rs 60 crore, an official said.
There are approximately 1.40 lakh beneficiaries under the scheme who are entitled to Rs 2,000 per month.
Additionally the Social Welfare Department also administers payouts to beneficiaries of other schemes, including payments to the families of Covid victims who are yet to get the promised Rs 50,000 each. Some Rs 20 crore are yet to be disbursed to these families, a source said.
Finance Department officials are also working out the nitty-gritties of disbursing funds to nodal departments like the Women and Child Department among others which administer the State government's other direct cash benefit schemes.
Meanwhile, another of the State's exchequer may have to also bear very soon the payout of salaries (honorariums) to sarpanchas, deputy sarpanchas and panchas, who have not been paid honorariums since taking office after the polls held in August last year. The government has also pledged to clear 11-month honorariums of these elected representatives before the Ganesh Chathurti festival.
Soon after these representatives took oath following the August 2022 elections, the State government also revised the monthly emoluments for sarpanchas, their deputies and panchas at the rate of Rs 6,000, Rs 5,250 and Rs 4,500 respectively.
These emoluments are paid by the Panchayat Department and the Finance Department has approved by payment and will be disbursed before Ganesh Chaturthi, the source said.
Meanwhile, Sawant also proposed in his budget to hike the panchayat representatives' emoluments by an additional Rs 2,000 per month. The Finance Department is still working on this hike but it will be paid to the sarpanchas and panchas only from April this year.
