Taking a cue from a campaign run by Congress MLA Jawahar Chavda, who is helping the poor get their names included in the list of Below the poverty line (BPL) families, the Junagadh district administration is organising a series of special camps, encouraging people to get enlisted for various government-run schemes. The district panchayat of Junagadh held special camps in all the nine talukas of the district in the last week of May and the first week of June. Officials distributed forms among people for various government schemes, like getting one’s name entered in the BPL list, getting cards of Mukhyamantri Amrutam (MA) Yojana to avail of health benefits, state assistance for building toilets, houses etc. After applicants filled up forms, they were accepted by the officials at the camp. District panchayat officials said they have received 29,000 applications for BPL entry and more than 30,000 others for other schemes like assistance in building toilets, houses, MA etc. [related-post] “The aim is to save time both of the applicants and our officials. This also helped us streamline the process as we came to know approximately how many applications we will have to process in a given time,” Ajay Prakash, district development officer (DDO) of Junagadh, said. But the panchayat has apparently taken a cue from Jawahar Chavda, the Congress MLA from Manavadar in Junagadh. In January 2012, Chavda sent teams of volunteers in villages of all the 14 talukas of then undivided Junagadh. The volunteers distributed forms of various government schemes and for inclusion of the poor in BPL list. They held camps in talukas and collected around 1.5 lakh filled up forms. The MLA then submitted the forms to the then district collector of Junagadh in October that year. But Chavda claims that no action was taken on the forms till 2014. Eventually, the MLA moved a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Gujarat High Court (HC) in March 2014, listing the government of Gujarat, then revenue minister Anandiben Patel and four others as respondents. In July last year, the HC directed the district administration to dispose of the applications in three months and extend state benefits to the deserving applicants. “The drive was non-political and aimed at only helping the poor to get their due. Through this drive, I managed to reach out to around four lakh people in the district. Local BJP leaders told Anandiben that if applications were processed and benefits extended, I could win Lok Sabha elections should Congress field me. So, she instructed Junagadh officials verbally not to process them,” says Chavda, who is serving his third term as MLA.
