Haryana’s Mukhya Mantri Parivar Samridhi Yojana: ‘Maximum poor families availing benefits are from richest districts’

The data reveals that majority of poor families availing benefit under the Mukhya Mantri Parivar Samridhi Yojana (MMPSY) were from the richest districts.

An umbrella scheme of the Haryana government, designed to provide benefits of six central government schemes to economically weaker sections, seems to be not able to meet its very objective, its data reveals.

The data reveals that majority of poor families availing benefit under the Mukhya Mantri Parivar Samridhi Yojana (MMPSY) were from the richest districts. On the contrary, Mewat – the most backward area in the state – find place among the districts with least number of beneficiaries who were given benefits under this scheme.

Haryana government had deputed senior IAS officers in every district to check the implementation of its schemes at the ground level and monitor them.

Nuh (Mewat) was allocated to IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who has now raised questions on the implementation of the scheme, calling it “poor”. Khemka has also pointed out the glaring difference between the number of eligible beneficiaries in richest vis-a-vis poorest districts, saying that wrong benefits were being given to the families that were not eligible under the MMSPY.

“As district in-charge of Nuh, I have reviewed the scheme. Poor implementation: Till date, an amount of Rs 270.84 crore has been transferred into the accounts of 8,77,538 beneficiary families, that is, a mere Rs 3,086 per family on an average. The entitlement is Rs 6000 per year per family. Eligible families should have received Rs 12,000 for the two years – 2019-20 and 2020-21,” Khemka has written in a letter to the state government, adding that “the design of the scheme’s standard operating procedure was defective, leading to poor implementation”.

He further wrote: “Wrong benefits to the ineligible: Whereas, there are disproportionately high numbers in the districts of Karnal, Hisar, Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Kaithal (together comprising 43.4 per cent of the total beneficiary families), the bottom five districts of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Panchkula, Rohtak, Charkhi Dadri have low numbers (together comprising just 7.1 per cent of the total). Nuh (Mewat), the most backward district, has just 2.4 per cent of the total beneficiaries, whereas Karnal, amongst the richest districts, has 10.4 per cent. It seems the family income was not verified before releasing the benefits under the scheme, leading to avoidable waste of public money”.

A flagship scheme of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the MMPSY, according to Haryana government, is one of the largest social security programmes in the country. Its basic aim is to ensure life and accidental insurance for all economically weaker sections of Haryana along with assured pension and family provident fund for farmers and unorganised sector workers. The families (parivar) having an annual income upto Rs. 1.8 lakh and a total landholding upto five acres are eligible for getting the benefits under the scheme. Families also must have a family identity card – the Parivar Pehchan Patra – to avail benefits.

The scheme was implemented by the finance department through treasuries and accounts department. The treasury officers of all the districts and accounts officer (DMC) at headquarters were designated as the nodal officers of the scheme. Later on, Swarna Jayanti Haryana Institute for Fiscal Management (SJHIFM) was designated as the nodal agency for implementation of the MMPSY vide cabinet approval on April 30, 2020.

Currently, there are 13,51,266 families enrolled under the MMPSY scheme. So far benefits to the tune of Rs. 270.84 crore has been disbursed under the scheme to 8,77,538 families.

As per the state government’s data, Karnal has the highest eligible families (90,943) who have availed Rs. 28,40,87,807 as benefits under the scheme. Contrary to that, Mewat that is the most backward area in Haryana has the least eligible families (21,037) who have availed Rs 6,72,60,733 in benefits.

After Karnal, the other top four districts include Hisar (88,417 eligible families, Rs. 27,21,71,334 as benefits), Bhiwani (72,167 eligible families, Rs. 22,31,86,762 as benefits), Fatehabad (66,945 eligible families, Rs. 20,77,51,957 as benefits) and Kaithal (61,803 eligible families, Rs. 19,08,29,161 as benefits).

The lowest five districts include Faridabad (7,099 eligible families, Rs. 2,21,74,101 as benefits), Gurgaon (10,261 eligible families, Rs. 3,13,68,417 as benefits), Panchkula (11,632 eligible families, Rs. 3,54,05,107 as benefits), Rohtak (14,006 eligible families, Rs. 4,30,48,904 as benefits) and Charkhi Dadri (18,976 eligible families, Rs. 5,79,50,617 as benefits).

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