This rainy season, Sasmita Tripathy of Jajang village in Kendrapara district is living a wretched life as the roof of her thatched house is leaking. As if her poverty was not enough, the financial assistance under the government’s ‘Mo Ghar Yojana’ has also been eluding her.
With the hope of getting her ramshackle hut repaired, she had applied for financial assistance under ‘Mo Ghara Yojana’. Even though two months have passed, she said she is yet to get a pie under the yojana.
She is not alone to suffer this predicament.
A resident of Sindhia Balipal village under Sadar block in Balasore district, Birendra Senapati has a similar complaint to make. He had applied for financial assistance under Mo Ghara Yojana. But his application was rejected at the bank level.
“Each time I visit the net café in our village to see if my name is there in the beneficiary list, they (those in the café) would tell me that I have not been selected,” said a distressed Sasmita.
Expressing his concern, Senapati said the yojana is nothing but a farce. “None would get assistance under ‘Mo Ghara Yojana’. This is a farce. The government has launched it to garner votes.
There are many such applicants who have lost their hopes of getting any benefit under the Yojana.
“I have applied for assistance under Mo Ghara Yojana but neither the BDO nor the Bank Manager has visited my house. My hope of getting money is getting thinner. The scheme seems like a pie in the sky,” rued Rajendra Goud.
As per the information shared by the government, a total of 17,890 people have applied for financial assistance under ‘Mo Ghara Yojana’. Of them, only 3,000 have received the assistance. In Kendrapara district, assistance has been provided to nine persons of as many blocks.
Now, the question arising is why people are turning their backs on this flagship programme of the state government.
“The bank has sanctioned only four applications of our block. The main the beneficiaries are facing is that their landed properties are still jointly owned by their family members. This is so why the banks are reluctant to provide assistance to them,” said BDO, Kendrapara, Bandana Khatua.
When asked, the chief development officer of Balasore, Biswaranjan Nayak said, “The branch offices of the banks are in touch with their respective head offices to do away with the bottlenecks. I hope soon we would achieve a good number.”
Under ‘Mo Ghara Yojana’, the government is providing financial assistance from Rs 1 lakh to 3 lakh. While beneficiaries belonging to the general caste are getting a rebate between Rs 30,000 and 60,000, an ST/SC beneficiary gets Rs 10,000 more than what a general caste beneficiary receives.