The government will not disburse Rs1,500 each to more than 10 lakh beneficiaries under the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana and Shravan Bal Seva Pension Scheme for the months of January and February.
The decision comes after the government decided to disburse the money through the direct benefit transfer (DBT) portal with Aadhaar validation.
The DBT disbursal, initiated in December last year, brought 29.77 lakh beneficiaries on board the portal. But during the process of the Aadhaar validation the number of beneficiaries reached only 19.74 lakh.
The state has decided to disburse money to those whose Aadhaar validation has been completed. It means over 10 lakh beneficiaries will not get financial assistance for the two months.
Issuing order for the release of funds, the state has allocated Rs610 crore for disbursal, holding the amount for the rest of the beneficiaries. For the 10 lakh beneficiaries, the state has asked district collectors to complete the process of validation on an urgent basis.
Both the schemes were the most populist till the Ladki Bahin Scheme was launched by the Mahayuti government in July last year. Both Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar and Shravan Bal Seva are the brainchild of Congress governments.
According to sources from the government, a significant number of beneficiaries may not exist or their names are proxies. It is because when the scrutiny of names to bring them on board the DBT portal was being made names of hundreds of beneficiaries had to be dropped for want of valid proofs. During the process of Aadhaar validation, the data of many beneficiaries did not match, leaving a scope of doubt for non-existence of them or someone else claiming the benefits by proxy.
