Saturday, 11 September 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
The Transport department has marked over 32,000 beneficiaries working in public transportation across the state for monetary aid being provided by the State government. The department had invited applications on August 11 from those drivers, conductors and cleaners working in public transportation whose livelihood was affected by the Covid curfew this year except for the workers of Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (UTC). Under this scheme, the State Government will provide a monthly financial aid of Rs 2,000 to each beneficiary across the state from the chief minister relief fund for the next six months.
The deputy transport commissioner Sanat Kumar Singh said that the department has allowed applications by all the potential beneficiaries till September 5. He said that the department has received a total of 39,427 applicants out of which, about 32,000 applicants have been selected as the beneficiaries while the status of about 4,000 applications is still pending. He informed that Dehradun with about 12,000 beneficiaries and Nainital with about 6,000 beneficiaries are the top two districts with high number of eligible beneficiaries. He said that the department has already issued cheques to all district magistrates for an amount of over Rs 23 crore payable to the eligible beneficiaries including Rs 7.41 crore and Rs 3.72 crore to Dehradun and Nainital districts respectively. He said that all the regional transport officers have been directed to provide details of the beneficiaries registered in the web portal of the department to their respective district magistrates in three days.
Besides this, Singh also informed that the department has closed the registration process for new potential beneficiaries but it will consider restarting the process if authorities find that there are more potential beneficiaries who have failed to register themselves. He said that the beneficiaries will receive the amount after chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami will inaugurate the programme by making the first direct bank transfer to the beneficiaries account on September 15. “Though all the possible beneficiaries have applied for the monetary aid, it is possible that many will come to know about this programme after the government makes the payments to the selected beneficiaries. If required, the department will restart the programme to provide benefit to remaining eligible beneficiaries” stated Singh.
