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Mulayam’s much-touted scheme draws flak from CAG

Mulayam Singh

Allahabad: The much-touted ‘Kanya Vidya Dhan Scheme’, launched by the Mulayam Singh government in 2004 in Uttar Pradesh, has come in for sharp criticism from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India which has termed it as “deficient”.

The CAG, in its latest report, pointed out a number of irregularities in the scheme which was made a poll plank by the Samajwadi Party in the last Assembly poll in the State. The scheme had drawn flak from Mulayam’s political foes who had dubbed it as populist and was scrapped last year when Mayawati Government took over the reins of the State.

“Inadequate scrutiny of applications and income certificates of guardians led to payment of incentives meant for poor girls to ineligible beneficiaries,” the report said. Terming the scheme as “deficient”, the CAG said Rs 12.61 crore remained unutilised in 22 districts due to delay in finalisation of the list of beneficiaries.

This resulted in non-disbursement of incentives to 6305 beneficiaries, the report said adding no provision was made to monitor the scheme at any level or to assess its impact. The CAG also expressed displeasure over “expenditure incurred on organising functions to distribute incentives”.

According to the scheme, District Inspectors of Schools (DIOs) were to submit Utilisation Certificates (UCs) relating to the amount disbursed to the Accountant General. “However, no UCs were received nor disbursement figures reconciled by the DIOs,” the report said.

Voicing concern over alleged irregular disbursement of incentives, the CAG said no application was received from the beneficiaries during 2004-05 in Lucknow, Allahabad and Meerut.

“Yet, lists of 6971 girl students (Meerut 2629,Lucknow 542 and Allahabad 3800) were obtained from colleges in these districts and Rs. 13.94 crore paid to them without verifying their guardians’ income,” the report pointed out.

Moreover, “scrutiny of 6659 applications pertaining to 2004-07 revealed that 1021 did not have signatures or photographs,” it said. -- PTI

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