Welfare schemes proving ineffective, alleges activist

Shimla, Apr 29 (UNI) A social activist and a columnist today alleged that out of a total of 3,100 welfare schemes being implemented in the country, only nine are proving effective and scarce financial resources are being lost in the others.

''Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Mid-Day Meal in schools, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and Special Welfare Pension Schemes are few of the successful schemes,'' Mr Sachin Jain said while addressing a two-day seminar on ''Right to Food'' organised by HP Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) and Himalayan Mountain Forum (HMF) here.

He said these schemes cover the entire life of a person and were proving to be successful and were benefiting several hundred thousand below poverty line (BPL) families, destitute, widows and other backward castes and classes.

Referring to the cases of malnutrition in various parts of the country, he said it had declined by three per cent on the national level, while registering an increase of two per cent in Gujarat.

''Gujarat is the only state in the country to have recorded an increase in malnutritional cases in the country,'' he said at the seminar, which was attended by 50 civil right groups, NGOs and self help groups (SHGs).

The social activist alleged that even after spending a huge sum of Rs 25,000 crore on the public distribution system (PDS), its motive were not being achieved since several hundred thousand families BPL families were left out of the scheme.

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