Ahead of assembly elections, the Rajasthan government is all set to organise a mass contact program in every district of the state.
Reaching the state's 80 million population through the 'populist welfare schemes', is one thing that chief minister Ashok Gehlot is banking on, to repeat the Congress government in the state.
According to the sources at the chief minister's office, to ensure that the welfare schemes presented by the chief minister Ashok Gehlot in the recent and previous budgets are reaching their beneficiary, the government will be holding 3000 moving camps, registered camps and mobile camps across the state. The reach-out programme will be conducted through the integrated cell constituted by the government and campaign design shall be backed up by design boxed a consultancy agency.
"This is to ensure that everyone is registered in the flagship welfare schemes. The government is concerned that many who do not take benefits from the welfare sops should be registered. What's more worrying is that many who don't need them, don't take them but money is being allocated in their name. And this money could be saved by the end of the financial year", a senior official at the chief minister's office shared.
Recently Gehlot also launched an outreach to over two lakh beneficiaries of government schemes in 33 districts and took the feedback on his social welfare schemes by directly connecting with over two lakh people across Rajasthan. The outreach also included the Chiranjeevi Bima Yojana which provides affordable health insurance, the Right to Health Bill, an employment scheme for the urban poor, an Old pension scheme, a farm waiver bill and subsidies on electricity and gas.
The CM launched Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi Swasthya Bima Yojana which provides free indoor patient care in all state and affiliated private hospitals. Recently, the insurance cover was increased to up to Rs 25 lakhs. But at the same time, some accidental death cases have not availed the benefit due to a lack of awareness.
"Several ideas have been debated in the government in this regard and after that, it was finalised that the outreach program will cover around 1.8 million households living in the state. It was also decided that a social security audit would also go door-to-door", said a senior bureaucrat who attended a meeting of collectors and officials held by the Chief Secretary of Rajasthan on Saturday. The mass contact drive shall be held from the third week of April.
According to the sources in the Congress, the party is focussing on the work and welfare schemes delivered, which were promised in the manifesto to counter the opposition BJP. The party's seriousness of banking on welfare schemes became evident even on Sunday when Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh issued a statement praising the welfare schemes launched by CM Gehlot.
Interestingly the statement, which could also be seen as a counter-reply, came hours after Rajasthan's former deputy CM Sachin Pilot attacked Gehlot for not acting on allegations against former BJP CM Vasundhara Raje and his government and announced holding a one-day fast against corruption on April 11.
