Funds for schemes for the physically challenged, destitute women and children, the elderly, and several educational programmes lie unutilised as the capital’s social welfare department fails to identify beneficiaries 

Delhi’s social welfare department did not spend a single rupee on several of its welfare schemes during the first seven months of 2007, according to documents accessed by a leading English daily. As a result, funds for schemes for the physically challenged, destitute women and children, the elderly, and several educational programmes lie unutilised as the department has failed to identify beneficiaries.

The social welfare department has funds to provide scholarships to 800 disabled people a year. However, as of July 31, no one has benefited from this. And in another instance of callous disregard for the disabled, the department has not identified a single beneficiary or issued a single cheque for unemployment allowance that can be availed of by up to 2,380 disabled persons in the capital.

Other schemes too haven’t reached their intended beneficiaries. The social welfare department is supposed to provide financial assistance to 3,750 widows, but, again, it has failed to reach even one. It has been allotted funds to set up 10 juvenile shelter homes this year; so far, not one exists.

The Rs 4.5 crore sanctioned for old age homes also remains unutilised, while a planned primary school for the hearing impaired, scheduled to be built at Nehru Vihar, is also not up. The project’s status report shows that work has not been initiated and no money has been spent on it at all.

Other schemes where no money has been spent and no work done, despite financial sanction, include a development programme for the mentally challenged and a national programme for the rehabilitation of people with disability. Plans for a halfway home for mentally ill people who have been discharged from the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences at Shahdara remain on paper, as do plans for a leprosy treatment centre at Tahirpur and the development of a Sewa Kuteer complex for the visually challenged.

"In the four remaining months of the financial year, officials will hurry to spend the money and will come up with ill-conceived schemes and give out doles to those who do not need assistance at all. It’s a dismal picture," said a senior official who wished to remain anonymous.

Social Welfare Minister Yoganand Shastri said responsibility would be fixed, if officials in charge of implementing the schemes had been lax. "We will ensure that in the remaining months, schemes conceptualised by the government get implemented," he said.

Source: Hindustan Times, November 21, 2007