State govt to recover funds from ineligible MMSY beneficiaries

RANCHI: The Jharkhand women, child development, and social security department directed deputy commissioners of all districts to delist ineligible women from the list of beneficiaries under the Jharkhand Mukhyamantri Maiya Samman Yojana (MMSY) by the end of December and recover the honorarium paid to those who benefited by deliberately hiding facts about the exclusion criteria, officials familiar with the matter said on Friday.

- Raj Kumar

The exclusion criteria include the applicant herself or her husband being employed as a regular/permanent/contractual/honorarium employee in the central/state government, central/state public sector undertakings, statutory bodies, local bodies, urban bodies, or government-aided educational institutions, or receiving pension/family pension after retirement.

Additionally, members of current or former MLA or MP families, families paying income tax, or EPF account holders are excluded.

The norms of the scheme were issued at the time of the launch.

The scheme was launched on August 20 this year. Under the scheme, eligible beneficiaries aged 18-50 started receiving ₹1,000 in their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.

The amount enhancement was promised during the election in response to the BJP's election promise to launch the Gogo Didi Yojana, which proposed paying ₹2,100 as honorarium to women in the same age group.

The amount was increased to ₹2,500 on November 28 this year during the first cabinet meeting of the Hemant Soren government.

Department director Sameera S issued the directive on December 3 after the directorate received information about ineligible women taking advantage of the scheme.