Carry out physical verification of left-out beneficiaries under Gruha Lakshmi: Vice-Chairman of Karnataka guarantee implementation authority

Mangaluru: Vice-chairman of Karnataka state guarantee implementation authority Pushpa Amarnath has directed officials to reach out to eligible beneficiaries who have still not been able to get benefits of the Gruha Lakshmi scheme in Dakshina Kannada.

Though Dakshina Kannada district has achieved 92 per cent target under the scheme, there is a need to reach out to the remaining 8 per cent, she told mediapersons in Mangaluru after chairing a review of the implementation of guarantee schemes.

As per the authorities, there are 4,03,333 women-headed ration card holders in the district and the scheme has reached 3,69,292 beneficiaries. The remaining women who have not yet applied for the scheme should be reached out by the taluk guarantee implementation authority and officials.

The gram panchayat officials will conduct physical verification of eligible women by reaching out to their doorstep, to make them register under the scheme.

As many as 4,189 beneficiaries failed to receive the benefits due to failure to seed their accounts. A total of 5,296 beneficiaries could not avail the benefits due to the issues pertaining to IT returns and 3227 due to GST registrations.

As many as 1,083 beneficiaries have applied to the Commercial Tax department for individual verification to ensure that they do not pay GST, so that they can avail the benefits of the scheme and the department has issued NoC for 263 beneficiaries so far.

While availing the bank loan for construction of houses, beneficiaries were asked to submit IT Returns. As a result, beneficiaries are devoid of the benefits.

Further, when people failed to link PAN and Aadhaar, they were asked to pay a fine of Rs 1,000, when they tried to link it, which is shown as IT Returns on the IT website. “These IT related issues will be discussed with the Central government, to find a solution,” she added.

Pushpa Amarnath said that 4,023 beneficiaries have registered under Yuva Nidhi and 3328 unemployed are receiving the financial assistance in the district. This comprises 3197 graduates and 131 diploma holders.

A total of Rs 2,02,69,500 was debited to the account of beneficiaries till July and 416 applications are pending for verification.

District Skill Development Officer Pradeep D’Souza said that as many as 23,211 students have passed out during 2023-24 in the district. Of this, 6,031 are pursuing higher education, 7,464 are employed, 4,810 are unemployed in the district, of which some are from out of the district and the state.

Pushpa Amarnath stressed the need for creating awareness on guarantee schemes during Dasara celebrations in the form of outdoor advertisements.