State govt ''insincere'' to implement security schemes: OPCC

Bhubaneswar, May 18 (UNI) Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Prasad Harichandan today claused the state government was not ''sincere'' in implementing the social security schemes.

Mr Harichandan said about six lakh poor old people of the state were deprived of the old age pension benefits offered by the Central government due to the ''apathetic attitude'' of the state government.

He said though the Union government in 2007 had decided to offer old age pension to all old people above the age of 65 in BPL families, the government had not able to prepare a list of the beneficiaries yet.

Similarly, the government also failed to implement the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana in the state for the poor people, though it had already been implemented in many states.

The Congress leader described the state government's allegation that the Union government was forcing it to delete ten lakh beneficiary from the 1997 BPL list as baseless.

Mr Harichandan alleged that despite repeated reminders from the Centre, the state government had not yet prepared a list of BPL people.

The Congress leader alleged the Chief Minister's announcement to provide the benefits meant for BPL people from its own resources if they were excluded from the BPL list, was meant to mislead the people.

Mr Harichandan also alleged that though, according to a rough estimate, about Rs 170 crore would be needed per annum to provide rice to the 10 lakh BPL beneficiaries, the state government had made a budgetary provision of only Rs 30 crore.

Similarly, the government had made a provision of Rs 100 crore against the requirement of Rs 2500 crore to provide houses to the BPL families under the Mo Kudia scheme formulated by the government.

UNI BD GL KN2229