GUWAHATI: Chief Minister’s Sarbananda Sonowal’s order of streamlining the functioning of Social Welfare Department and deletion of the names of ‘ghost children’ bore fruits as the department after head counts pruned downed the number of beneficiaries to 35 lakh thus giving a relief to the state exchequer to the tune of Rs 150 crore every year.
It may be noted that taking a strong note on the allegation of fraudulently and entering ghost names and siphoning off money from the Anganwadi Centres in the state, Chief Minister Sonowal had ordered an inquiry and as a result the names of pregnant mothers and lactating children and children in the age group of six months to six years were detected and deleted. These ‘ghost names’ took a huge toll on the state exchequer to the tune of about Rs 150 crore annually.
This startling revelation has come to light during a high level meeting of the Social Welfare Department held in chief minister’s conference room in Janata Bhawan on Friday. During the meeting chief minister Sonowal asked Principal Secretary Welfare Department Jishnu Baruah to fine tune the functioning of the department including the Anganwadi Centres and provide nutrition to women and children who are predominantly from the underprivileged section of the society.
Sonowal also asked the Principal Secretary Baruah to expeditiously complete the survey of the specially-abled people in the state so that the State government’s decision of providing financial assistance of Rs 12,000 each to every differently-abled person at the rate of Rs 1000 every month could be implemented.
He also asked the Director Social Welfare Department S. S. Meenakshi Sundaram to set up skill development centres for the specially abled people for their capacity building. He also asked him that state of the art centre of Skill Development be set up in Guwahati.
He also asked the director to make the Women’s helpline ‘181’ a 24X7 business. The director replied that women’s helpline would be made functional on 24X7 from May 31 onwards.