Despite being explicitly barred from availing benefits under the Mukh Mantri Mawan-Dheeyan Satkar Yojana, 1,597 regular and permanent women employees of Punjab government departments, boards, corporations and public sector organisations have been found to have applied for the financial assistance scheme.
The Mukh Mantri Mawan-Dheeyan Satkar Yojana was announced on International Women’s Day on March 8 during the Punjab Budget presentation and formally launched on July 1 by chief minister Bhagwant Mann in Dhuri, Sangrur district.
The state government has identified these employees and directed their respective departments to seek written explanations, verify their service records and recover the financial assistance received by those found ineligible. Regular and retired government employees were not entitled to the benefit. Women applying for the financial assistance had also been required to submit an undertaking declaring that they were neither serving nor retired government employees or income-tax payers. The eligibility conditions also explicitly exclude regular or retired employees of the central government, and other state/UT governments. Those eligible for or receiving pensions from government-established public sector undertakings, statutory boards, corporations, commissions, committees, directorates, cooperative institutions and tribunals are also barred. Additionally, elected MLAs or MPs; and spouses of serving ministers, MPs or MLAs are excluded.
Sukhdeep Singh Jhajj, deputy director, Directorate of Social Security and Women and Child Development, said the anomaly came to fore through the Integrated Human Resource Management System (HRMS), containing complete employee records. “The employees will now be served notices by their respective departments and the money received by those found ineligible will be recovered,” he added. Jhajj said the government had clearly specified the exclusion criteria when launching the scheme.
