Bhubaneswar: A field inquiry of 2.85 lakh women beneficiaries, who have not received the third instalment of Subhadra Yojana, will be conducted, Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida informed on Wednesday.
“The field inquiry will be completed within 15 days,” she said after a review meeting at Lok Seva Bhawan here.
Parida, who holds the Women and Child Development portfolio, further stated that the Health Department’s data will only be considered for identifying deceased beneficiaries to prevent posthumous payments. “We had received complaints that some beneficiaries were mistakenly marked as dead on the Subhadra portal on the basis of their ration cards. The meeting decided that only Health Department data will now be considered for this purpose,” she said.
She said that the grievance portal will be opened in two days, allowing eligible beneficiaries to file a complaint and again apply for inclusion under the scheme. “The department will take up some other concerns related to the scheme like scholarships, vehicle ownership and IT returns with the CM. A decision will then be taken in the interest of the beneficiaries,” she added.
The Deputy CM reiterated that not a single eligible woman will be deprived of the benefit.
Ahead of the meeting, the Women and Child Development department had sought detailed reports from Commerce & Transport, Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare, and Health on women owning four-wheelers, updated list of deceased beneficiaries and land records of women who had sold paddy, respectively.
According to sources, 1,805 of 15,984 women wrongly marked dead are likely to be reinstated. Similarly, 36,702 were excluded for owning vehicles, 21,035 due to income tax status, and 1.33 lakh for being registered farmers.
Over one crore women have so far benefited from the ruling BJP’s flagship fund-transfer scheme, which was launched on September 17, 20204, aiming to empower women aged 21 to 60 years. The beneficiaries are paid Rs 10,000 per annum in two instalments of Rs 5,000 each on Rakhi Purnima and International Women’s Day on March 8.
The scheme will be implemented from 2024-25 to 2028-29 and each beneficiary will receive Rs 50,000 over a period of five years. An outlay of Rs 55,825 crore has been approved for the initiative.