Patna, April 18: Having won accolades for delivering cash benefits to target groups through its cycle and uniform schemes for school students, the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government has now come up with an innovative plan to deliver pilferage-free cash benefits to Mahadalit families of the state.

The new scheme pertains to providing coupons to Mahadalit families for purchasing radio sets. The state government in 2008-09 had launched a special scheme for Mahadalit families under which each family had to get Rs 400 for purchasing radio sets. The scheme was launched the same year and around 1,000 families of Phulwari block in Patna district were provided the fund.

A follow up study revealed that only about 20 per cent of the beneficiaries purchased radio sets while the rest used the money for other works. Since then, the state government had been looking for a way to ensure the funds were being used for the purpose they were sanctioned.

“During a recent meeting, the chief minister directed us to use coupons instead of cash to deliver the benefits under the aforesaid scheme,” Mahadalit mission state project manager Umesh Manjhi told The Telegraph.

He said that Nitish also directed the project officers to consult radio set manufacturing companies for organising fairs in Bihar so that the beneficiaries could purchase radio sets of their choice using the coupons given to them.

After getting the directive from the chief minister, the mission has started working out the details for organising “radio fairs” in the state.

“In all likelihood, these fairs would be organised at district level but the exact details would be know only after the plan is chalked out,” Manjhi said and added that the financial details too are being worked out. There are about 41.25 lakh Mahadalit families in Bihar and the state government has sanctioned Rs 98 crore in the current fiscal (2011-12) for the welfare programmes launched for them.

Out of the 22 castes falling under the Scheduled Caste category, the Bihar government has accorded 21 of them the status of Mahadalits and launched special welfare programmes for them.

One among them is the Dashrath Manjhi Skill Development programme under which Mahadalit youths are given special training and the Mahadalit mission has also taken up the responsibility of getting the trained youths placed in gainful employment.

Over 1,000 Mahadalit youths were given the training of security guard under this scheme in 2010-11. Security agencies were hired for imparting the one-month training under this scheme.

“We had an understanding with these agencies and most of the trained youths would get employment,” Manjhi said.

Another welfare scheme pertains to appointment of “Vikas Mitras”. Under this scheme, Mahadalit youths are hired for playing the said role and they get a monthly stipend of Rs. 4,000. They are responsible of making Mahadalits aware about the various schemes being run for them. A total of 9,875 posts of Vikas Mitras have been created out of which 9,530 have already been appointed.