3 months on, no atta, dal for beneficiaries

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 15

It has become a tough life for some people in the state who live hand-to-mouth and badly depend on benefits doled out by the government through its welfare schemes.

As many as 2.27 lakh families in Jalandhar district have got no ration supplies for the past three months, even the nearly 1.2 lakh pension beneficiaries too have not received the paltry Rs 500 grant per month since November.

Though there are no directions from the ECI to discontinue ongoing welfare schemes, departments withheld the distribution of benefits at their own level. The only instructions that came from the ECI were that the benefit should not be passed via any political leader or village committees and only government staff should be engaged for the distribution.

Deputy Director of the Food and Civil Supplies Department Dr Rakesh Singla said: “We ourselves chose to put a break on the distribution till the imposition of the election code as it was unnecessarily leading to lodging of complaints in various areas with election committees. We stopped it only to avoid any controversy during the elections. Otherwise, there was no direction against the distribution from the ECI and we have all stock with us.”

Though there was no such problem of physical distribution of pension among the beneficiaries as every month it was going directly into accounts of widows, orphans, handicapped and the elderly, the Department of Social Security had not been able to get the amount released from November onwards.

District Social Security Officer Dalwinderjit Singh said: “We had paid an amount of Rs 5.54 lakh to the beneficiaries in Jalandhar in October but there was no subsequent release of funds. Hence, we have not been able to pay the benefits from November onwards. With the poll code of conduct still in place, the treasuries are lying closed and we cannot continue with the scheme.”