PANAJI
The State government’s much-touted scheme ‘Covid-19 relief to marginalised/ unorganised sector’ will discontinue after it clears 90,000 pending applications for a one-time grant. The decision was taken at the State cabinet meeting on Wednesday wherein Rs 20 crore was also approved to clear 40,000 of the total applications in the first phase.
“We received 90,000 applications seeking one-time relief of Rs 5,000 under the scheme. There was a shortage of funds…The cabinet has approved Rs 20 crore for 40,000 applicants while the remaining will be cleared in the next Budget in April. We won’t accept more applications hereafter,” Social Welfare Minister Subhash Phaldesai told reporters after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant-headed cabinet meeting at the Secretariat.
He explained that the government will make a provision of Rs 25 crore in the upcoming Budget session to clear the remaining 50,000 applications after mandatory scrutiny. “The amount will be released to the eligible applicants within 15 days of their applications’ scrutiny,” he added.
The State government introduced the scheme in July 2021 to grant one-time financial relief to a large number of people engaged in different marginalised/ unorganised sectors, whose livelihood was impacted owing to Covid pandemic. As many as 80 traditional businesses and occupations were identified under the scheme.
The scheme, as explained by the government, was applicable to all those people engaged in traditional occupations and traditional business of Goa and occupations of resident Goans mostly informal and largely unorganised sector of Goa’s economy, which have proven operational/ production/ marketing history before liberation of Goa as testified by the local people/ knowledgeable local experts.
Besides this, target group also included the motorcycle pilots and auto rickshaw drivers who were affected as a result of Covid-19 pandemic.
