Mir Farhat
SRINAGAR, July 18: The Social Welfare Department has begun the process of providing monetary assistance to women from poor families for marriage following the High Court directions. However, the officials of the department said the benefits will not be given to all those women who have been shown as Below Poverty Line by the Consumers Affairs and Public Distribution Department as some people have procured BPL ration cards by fraudulent means.
Under this State scheme, Rs 25,000 would be provided as monetary assistance to a poor woman and 5 gm of gold costing around Rs 15,000.
The SWD officials said about 3.75 lakh poor girls are living in the State and would be given marriage assistance.
They said girls belonging to Below Poverty Line and who have attained the age of 18 years and are eligible for the marriage are being registered with the department through Anganwadi Centers to avail the benefits under the scheme for their marriage expenses.
However, the officials apprehend the scheme could be “misused and abused” by people by producing fake nikaah certificates and CA&PD’s BPL ration cards.
To block misuse of the scheme, the department is mulling to form committees which will be headed by respective Deputy Commissioners and will have District Social Welfare Officer, a senior gazetted officer, a female to monitor the scheme.
“Women will have to apply to the monitoring team with an affidavit attested by a Sarpanch, a councillor or by a gazetted officer and would be thoroughly checked whether she belongs to a BPL family,” Mohammad Shafi Rather, Secretary Social Welfare Department told Excelsior.
Rather said having BPL ration card cannot be the only criteria to avail the scheme.
“The teams formed at district level will itself assess on ground and will verify the authenticity of the claim of a woman of being BPL. There are chances of misuse and abuse of the scheme. So we have to monitor it,” he said.
“People may produce fake nikaah namas to get the marriage assistance. So we have to frame a mechanism to check the misuse,” he said.
The Social Welfare Department has sent the proposal to the Finance Department to get the financial assistance for the scheme. The Secretary said besides Government assistance, NGOs and local populace can also help the department by donating the money for noble cause.
Follow our WhatsApp channel