400 drawing unemployment allowance found ineligible in Mandi

Dipender Manta

Mandi, June 18

The district employment authorities have found over 400 youth, who were getting unemployment allowance in Mandi, to be ineligible to receive the benefit.

Under the unemployment allowance scheme, the state government provides Rs 1,000 to unemployed youth every month for two years and Rs 1,500 to specially abled youth.

District Employment Officer Akshay Kumar said, “When we suspected something is wrong, the department initiated an inquiry at its own level to detect the defaulters. During investigation, it was found that over 400 youth in the district had deceived the authorities concerned by producing fake documents to get the allowance.”

He said, “I have directed all these youth to inform the employment office, where they had registered their names, to stop the payment of the allowance with immediate effect.” He warned the defaulters that there was also a provision for legal action in such cases.

The District Employment Officer said that by stopping the allowance to these ineligible youth, the government would save Rs 3.50 lakh every month in the district. He added that besides being unemployed, the applicant should not be a regular student either.

“The applicant should not have been dismissed from government service nor convicted of any offence resulting in imprisonment for 48 hours or more. Also, the youth, who are getting the skill development allowance, are not eligible for the unemployment allowance,” he added.