The technocrat-turned-politician, said at a public gathering at Bhinar village in Bhiwandi that while it was heartening that the state has made considerable progress in increasing its income in recent years, issues of unemployment, poverty and the homeless continue to plague the state 51 years after it came into being in 1960.
The CM had flown down to the Bhiwandi hamlet was in Bhiwandi to launch a novel initiative to issue smart cards to beneficiaries of the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojyna, a state-sponsored financial aid scheme for destitutes. The cards and the cash-vending machine will work on biometric technology, whereby the beneficiary can withdraw cash from the vending machine by putting a thumb impression registered on the card.
The system of cash disbursal to beneficiaries of aid will be introduced in Thane, Kolhapur and Beed.Chavan, who was addressing a public gathering at Bhinar village in Bhiwadi, 40 km from Thane, lamented, "It is ironic that Maharashtra ranks second across the nation in terms of physical area and population. However, it has failed to match the progress in other sectors and is falling behind in other areas of development. Time has come to draw a blue-print for the sustainable development of the state for the next 50 years and ensure that in the next 10 years there are no families in the Below Poverty Line category and everyone gets employment and roof above his head.''
The CM had flown down to the Bhiwandi hamlet to launch a novel initiative to issue smart cards to beneficiaries of the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojyna, a state-sponsored financial aid scheme for the destitutes. The cards and the cash-vending machine would work on biometric technology whereby the beneficiary can draw the cash from the vending machine by putting a thumb impression registered on the card.
The biometric system of cash disbursal to beneficiaries of aid money would be introduced in Thane, Kolhapur and Beed. Minister of labour and special assistance Hasan Mushrif said the 1.76 lakh BPL beneficiaries would be issued these cards shortly and it would help plug the leakages in the scheme and money would now be drawn only by the listed beneficiaray.
Chavan indicated that the state would consider a hike in the assistance money provided under the various schemes. He, however, added that advanced technology should be put to use to facilitate merging various schemes in one single card like the Uinque ID cards underway no.
"One cannot expect the people to keep cards for every assistance scheme floated by the government. Instead, there should be just one card like a UID which would have the holders thumb impression and also an eye-tracking system which will rest all doubts of any misuse of the card on behalf of any other person,'' he said.
On the issue of the breaking of Thane district, Chavan seemed very ambiguous and said he would hold a meeting of elected representatives before firming up any decision on the issue.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Nitin Yeshwantrao
Quelle/Source: The Times of India, 02.05.2011
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