Uttar Pradesh: Yogi government reaches out to women hit by Covid-19 with doorstep services

The Yogi Adityanath government is taking a number of measures for welfare of women who have been widowed or have lost the earning members of their families to the pandemic, an exercise that could also help the BJP regime win back the confidence of the people ahead of next year’s assembly election.

A‘Virasat Abhiyan’ or inheritance mission, launched by the government on Tuesday, is aimed at expediting the transfer of ownership of land of the Covid-19 deceased landowners to their lawful inheritors on priority. The scheme is expected to include a sizeable number of widows. Local revenue department officials have been instructed to visit the houses of the inheritors in 108,000 revenue villages and hand over the updated documents to them personally as a mark of sensitivity. Further, the department has been told not to wait for applications by the women inheritors to make the necessary changes to ownership.

Women who are landless but eligible to get the land will be attempted to be given agricultural land, and those who live in kaccha houses will be recommended for beneficiary status under the CM Awas Yojana, Manoj Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary of the Rural Development Department told ET.

The women who are eligible for such pensions that are given for old age and handicapped persons, among others, will be signed up for the benefits. Additionally, the government will consider employment for them under MGNREGS and other schemes.