Government’s social welfare schemes are meant to benefit the truly poor and needy while not being misconstrued as largesse of the political party in power. In 2001 when the Dayanand Social Security Scheme (DSSS) was launched, the application forms were available only with ministers and ruling MLAs who started distributing them on their birthdays. As this was a public scheme, I was constrained to move the High Court which directed that the application forms be made available to the public at the offices of all mamlatdars.
It is imperative that the certifying of eligibility for social welfare schemes should be by revenue authorities and not the MLA or MP. It is on account of this that hundreds of ineligible persons managed to get themselves enrolled as beneficiaries of schemes they were not entitled to. It is also imperative that all payments to the needy are unfailingly made monthly and the applicants do not have to wait for months to receive their benefits. It would be prudent that the government should not launch new schemes unless it has the finances to be able to pay beneficiaries of existing schemes regularly.
