“According to the report, beneficiaries have been given only a narrow window from September 5 to September 8 to apply for the scheme, which provides ₹3,000 through their bank accounts for three LPG cylinders a year. The report also highlights shortages of physical forms at panchayat and municipal offices, long queues and difficulties faced particularly by senior citizens.
The irony is difficult to ignore.
Goa has repeatedly spoken about digital governance and has already created welfare platforms where citizens can apply online for government assistance. The Chief Minister’s Welfare Portal itself describes its approach as end to end digitisation, allowing beneficiaries to register, apply, upload documents and submit applications online.”
A welfare scheme is meant to make life easier for people. It should reach the intended beneficiaries with minimal paperwork, minimal inconvenience, and certainly without forcing them to run from one government office to another against a deadline. The controversy surrounding the rushed rollout of the Goa Ujjwala Yojana raises a simple but important question: why should an eligible family have to apply within just four days to receive a benefit that is meant for them?
According to the report, beneficiaries have been given only a narrow window from September 5 to September 8 to apply for the scheme, which provides ₹3,000 through their bank accounts for three LPG cylinders a year. The report also highlights shortages of physical forms at panchayat and municipal offices, long queues and difficulties faced particularly by senior citizens.
The irony is difficult to ignore.
Goa has repeatedly spoken about digital governance and has already created welfare platforms where citizens can apply online for government assistance. The Chief Minister’s Welfare Portal itself describes its approach as end to end digitisation, allowing beneficiaries to register, apply, upload documents and submit applications online.
So why was a scheme involving LPG consumers launched with such a compressed application period and a predominantly physical process?
There is no obvious administrative justification for making people scramble.
The government may have its reasons for fixing a date for the transfer of funds or completing administrative verification. But the application window need not be the same as the payment deadline. If the government genuinely wants every eligible family to benefit, applications could remain open for a reasonable period, with verification and payments being processed in batches.
There is nothing wrong with having a financial year boundary. There is nothing wrong with asking applicants to submit documents within a defined period. But a welfare programme should not be designed in a manner where a person who is eligible today loses the benefit simply because they could not reach a panchayat office during a few days.
This becomes even more problematic when the rollout coincides with the Ganesh Chaturthi period.
Families are busy cleaning and decorating their homes, preparing traditional food and making arrangements for the festival. For senior citizens, daily wage workers and people without easy access to transport, visiting an office repeatedly to obtain a form, photocopy documents and submit an application is not a minor inconvenience. It can mean losing a day’s work or making several unnecessary trips.
The shortage of forms makes the situation worse. A welfare scheme cannot have a system where the first person to reach an office gets a form while another eligible citizen is told to come back later.
That creates an avoidable scramble.
The government should therefore immediately reconsider the deadline and keep the application process open for at least a month, if not longer. Better still, applications should remain open until all eligible beneficiaries have been given a fair opportunity to apply.
The question is not whether ₹3,000 is a large or small amount. For many families, assistance towards cooking gas can make a real difference. The question is whether the state wants the scheme to reach every eligible household or merely achieve a target by a particular date.
There is also a larger lesson here.
A welfare scheme should not depend on political representatives distributing forms. Access must be uniform. An eligible citizen should not need to know a councillor, panchayat member, MLA or political worker to obtain an application form.
The government already possesses considerable information about LPG consumers. Aadhaar-linked records, bank details and LPG connection databases can help simplify verification. If the state can use technology to transfer benefits directly, it should also use technology to make applications easier.
And yet, technology should not become another barrier. A proper system should offer both online and offline options. Those who are comfortable applying digitally should be able to do so from home. Those who need assistance should be able to approach a panchayat, municipal office or designated service centre.
The objective must be inclusion, not procedural convenience for the administration.
There is nothing wrong with announcing a welfare scheme. There is everything wrong with making eligible citizens run against the clock to claim it.
Let people apply when they are ready. Give them a reasonable window. Verify the applications properly and release the benefit.
A welfare scheme succeeds not when the government announces it with great fanfare, but when the last eligible family gets its benefit without having to plead, queue repeatedly or race against an unnecessarily short deadline.
The Goa Ujjwala Yojana should therefore not be remembered for the chaos surrounding its rollout. It should be remembered as a scheme that was made accessible to every eligible Goan household.
The government has the opportunity to correct the problem. Extend the deadline, simplify the process, and let people apply without the pressure of a four-day race.
