Govt aid not reaching Vrindavan widows: SC

Lamenting that monetary assistance more often than not fail to reach the destitute,the Supreme Court Monday said it was looking for a more effective mechanism to ameliorate the distressing conditions of the widows of Vrindavan in UP.

A Bench of Justices D K Jain and Madan B Lokur said it was unfortunate that governments had many schemes to provide aid to destitute but they usually failed to reach them. We all know that money never reaches them. It is hardly 10 per cent of the monetary assistance that they get and rest will be pocked by the touts. We are very sorry to use the term tout,but we know what happens in reality, said Justice Jain,after a suggestion to provide regular monetary aid to Vrindavan widows was floated. The destitute are not benefitted8230; we see a lady who gets the money,but there is someone else standing in the queue withdrawing her money. We want a more efficacious system, said the Bench.

On a suggestion that mobile health vans be made available to them,Justice Jain remarked that an order of this nature could be passed to the chief medical officer of the district concerned but would not yield results. We can ask the CMO to provide civil hospital vans to move on their complaints but we all know how are government hospitals vans. They are usually in a non-functional state and hence,passing this directive does not provide a solution, said the Judge.

Posting the matter for July 30 to receive suggestions from the state governments concerned,the court issued notices to the governments of Orissa,West Bengal and UP.