The ‘Bidai’ scheme launched by the State government for providing financial assistance to poor minorities to meet their wedding expenses, is yet to gain publicity as only a few beneficiaries have got themselves registered for the scheme in Bijapur.
The officials in the Department of Minority Welfare admit that owing to inadequate publicity, people of minority community are not coming forward to make use of the benefit.
As per the statistics, only 82 persons in Bijapur district have applied for the scheme which offers a financial assistance of Rs. 50,000 to poor minority to meet their wedding expenses.
“We have received some 82 applications, and have cleared some 55 applications, while rest of the applications is under process of getting cleared”, said an official of the department.
He said that under the scheme, Rs. 50,000 is deposited in the account of those brides whose annual family earning is less than Rs. 1.5 lakh.
The official believes that for districts such as Bijapur which has higher concentration of minorities, mainly Muslims, the government should increase the number of beneficiaries to provide benefits to more people as the present target is only 74.
Though the department offers around 18 schemes for the welfare of Minorities, however, the beneficiaries have not been identified for a few schemes owing to lack of publicity, the officials believe.
A few schemes where beneficiaries have been identified are; vocational training for generating self-employment in which 105 beneficiaries undergoing training here for which they also get stipend of Rs. 500/month.
Senior journalist and former syndicate member of Karnataka University, Dharwad, Rafi Bhandari lamented that despite government introducing welfare schemes for minorities, lack of publicity has kept the minorities, deprived of the benefits.
He felt the local elected representatives too should hold regular review meeting to check the status and the level of implementation of the scheme.Courtesy:KarnatakaMuslims
http://karnatakamuslims.com/portal/bidai-scheme-lacks-publicityfails-to-reach-its-beneficiaries/