CHENNAI: With the scrapping of the previous AIADMK government’s flagship ‘Amma two-wheeler scheme’, about 9,000 people with approved applications for availing it in Chennai are yet to receive their two-wheeler subsidies.
In the year 2019-2020, 6,422 of the 9,519 target applicants had received the two-wheelers at subsidised costs, leaving 3,097 applicants waiting. In 2020-2021, however, only around 90 of the 6,000 applicants have so far received the subsidies. The processing of applications were also hit during the year due to the Covid-19 induced lockdown.
Corporation officials said they were still working on the scheme with whatever funds left, and were trying to hand out the subsidies to as many applicants as possible. However, they said the remaining funds were “very less”, and enough to finance only around 500 two-wheelers.
“We will write to the Tamil Nadu Corporation For Development of Women for funds to process the remaining applications,” said a Chennai corporation official.Usually, yearly targets are set for applications, to ensure that the scheme reaches a large number of people. The target varies from 6,000-10,000 applications a year. However, no targets have been set for 2021-2022, and the funding has also stopped, said the corporation officials.
On the other hand, officials in charge of the scheme in Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tiruchy said they have no pending eligible applications received under the scheme.The scheme was originally aimed at empowering working women, mainly from economically-backward sections, by offering them a chance to get two-wheelers at subsidised costs. The scheme allowed a subsidy of `25,000 or 50 per cent of the cost of the vehicle, whichever is lesser.
A two-wheeler dealer, who facilitated applications for the scheme, and did not wish to be named said, “There were many issues with the scheme including the fact that several underprivileged women couldn’t afford the `15,000-20,000 upfront payment that had to be made, and also going to financiers would burden them with additional debt. These issues could have been fixed instead of scrapping the scheme altogether.”
(With inputs from Coimbatore, Madurai & Tiruchy)