Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal expressed strong displeasure over pendency in implementing the Mukhyamantri Parivar Aarthik Sahayata Yojana, meant to benefit the next of kin of those who lost their lives to COVID-19.
At a high-level review meeting over the scheme on Friday, the CM directed the officers to disburse the amount due to the families of COVID-19 victims at the earliest. He also ordered that there will no longer be a need for death certificates and surviving member certificates from the families and officials should instead verify applications from the MHA list or official records and immediately disburse money.
Reality check
To provide a “reality check” to the government officials who are part of the programme, Mr. Kejriwal brought to the meeting a family member of a person who had passed away due to COVID-19. He narrated his ordeal on how he had to run from pillar to post to get his application approved.
“It is high time that the officials understood the criticality of the work. It is an express direction that no person should have to witness a similar scenario again and the officers take cognisance of the state of affairs,” Mr. Kejriwal said.
Console and support
The government’s duty, Mr. Kejriwal told officials, was to console and support grieving families, not create problems for them. Besides, applicants should not be asked to come to offices. There should also be no delay in disbursing the compensation amount over “frivolous reasons.” If, for instance, the spouse of the victim was alive, the government should give them the entire amount, he added.
If multiple children were surviving, the amount should be divided equally; paperwork should not be allowed to pile up, he directed.
No more pestering
“There is no need to pester families over certificates and papers. If we have their names on our lists, the officials must go to the homes of these families and hand them over their rightful amount by next week,” the Chief Minister said.
“We must understand that we have to look after these families like our own and support them in the same manner we would support someone mourning a loss in our family,” he added.
In the review meeting, the government stated, officials said that 25,709 applications had been received for the one-time ex gratia of ₹50,000 under the scheme. Out of this, 24,475 had tallied with the list of the MHA; 1,130 teams with 2,019 employees had been deployed to visit the homes of the applicants. Verification of about 19,000 applicants had been completed, of which 1,250 had opted out of the scheme.
At the same time, the CM was told that the Health Department had approved 9,043 of 24,475 applicants under the scheme and 7,163 beneficiaries had been provided relief.
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