Maharashtra minister: Proposal for welfare of orphaned kids pending, deputy CM not cooperating

Thakur said that a proposal to increase the grant given to the orphaned and the children who have lost either of their parents is pending with the finance department for months

Congress has once again complained of the secondary treatment in Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. Senior party leader and women and child development (WCD) minister Yashomati Thakur has trained gun at deputy chief minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar for not releasing funds for the schemes related to her department and echoed the dissident voice raised earlier by her other cabinet colleagues.

Thakur said that a proposal to increase the grant given to the orphaned and the children who have lost either of their parents is pending with the finance department for months.

Thakur said that a proposal to increase the grant given to the orphaned and the children who have lost either of their parents is pending with the finance department for months. She said that the deputy chief and finance minister Ajit Pawar was not cooperating with her the way he should. She raised the issue during a public meeting in Akola, in the presence of the revenue minister and Congress’s legislative party leader Balasaheb Thorat.

“The grant given for the upbringing of the children who have lost one or both parents have been recently increased to ₹1,125 from ₹450. We wish to further increase it to ₹2,500. The proposal is pending with the chief minister and deputy chief minister. The deputy chief minister has not been cooperating with us the way he should have,” Thakur said. She also requested Thorat to look into it.

Under the scheme, 17,845 children who have lost both or either of their parents get ₹1,125 a month for their upbringing. The grant is given to the family or relatives who take care of these children. Another 15,000 such children have been added to the category amid the Covid-19 pandemic due to the deaths of their parents.

According to the officials from WCD, the proposal is to increase the amount further by ₹2,500 for the better maintenance of these children. “It has been moved almost two months ago, after which a couple of meetings were held. The finance department is not positive about the proposal as the annual burden is expected to go up to ₹40 crore from around ₹20 crore. The finance department has asked for the information from all other departments on similar schemes to avoid duplicity,” the official said.

This is not the first time that any Congress minister has spoken about the secondary treatment by the three-party government. Senior Congress leaders and ministers like Thorat, Ashok Chavan, Vijay Wadettiwar had expressed their discontent openly over the release of funds to the local bodies the party control. Chavan had said last year the municipal councils and district council under them did not get development funds. Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole had last month in Lonavala attacked Ajit Pawar for undermining Congress leaders in Pune. He had later retracted his statement.

NCP Member of Parliament Supriya Sule said that there is nothing to read anything into it. “There no other meaning to what Yashomatitai has said. The finance department had released ₹5 lakh for the Balsangopan scheme in the past. The MVA government is sensitive about the issues related to children. I am sure the demand will soon be complied with,” she said.