The government will weed out names of six lakh dummy beneficiaries of its different welfare schemes following a review meeting on Friday.

The social welfare department provides financial assistance to persons under widow pension, old age pension, pension to disabled persons and others as part of different schemes. Around 6 lakh of the 67 lakh beneficiaries have been discovered to be existing only on paper now that the government plans to link them through Aadhaar.

Chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said: "It was decided that the government will also change the mode of disbursing funds under these schemes. Earlier, funds were disbursed through camps, but now the money will be given through direct benefit transfer to the beneficiary's bank account linked with Aadhaar."

Singh was at the review meeting of the welfare department chaired by chief minister Nitish Kumar. Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, social welfare minister Manju Verma and officials from social welfare department also attended the meeting.

The chief secretary said the Bihar government has decided to transfer the funds in a new manner so that leak of funds can be plugged.

Sources said a beneficiary gets Rs 400 to Rs 600 on a monthly basis.

At the review meeting of the social welfare department, it was also decided to set up "Buniyaad Kendra" for disabled persons. These centres will set up at the sub-divisional levels where disabled persons can get all types of assistance and even medical help.

The department will set up crematoriums at the panchayats.

Nitish also reviewed work of the irrigation department at the Friday meeting.

It was decided to set up a maintenance policy to renovate and maintain canals. Chief secretary Singh said: "Maintenance and renovation will be undertaken at the canals regularly according to the government's policy."

Bihar has a canal network of 20,000km across the state, but sources said because of the lack of a maintenance policy, many of the canals are in a bad shape.

It was decided at the meeting to set up a low-level weather forecasting unit at every panchayat so that farmers can have information on weather.

The state's GDP growth is 14.82 per cent on current rate, while on constant rate, it is 10.32 percent, it was discussed in the review meeting of the planning department.

Under the five-year plan, the government has a target expenditure of Rs 2.28 lakh crore, while the expenditure was Rs 2.21 lakh crore - nearly 97 per cent. The chief secretary said among the major sectors where the funds have been spent are health, education and other social sectors. A major share of the funds has also been used on infrastructure, including roads, power, building and agriculture.