Wayanad sub-collector R. Sreelakshmi collected details of tribal persons participating in the Akshaya Big Campaign for Document Digitization campaign organized by the district administration at Pozhuthana. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Wayanad has become the first district in the country to provide basic documents and facilities like Aadhaar card, ration card, birth/death certificate, election identity card, bank accounts and health insurance to all tribals.
Wayanad district administration has achieved a commendable achievement by providing 1,42,563 services to 64,670 tribal beneficiaries as part of Akshaya Big Campaign for Document Digitization (ABCD) campaign. This includes ration cards to 15,796 families, Aadhaar cards to 31,252, birth certificates to 11,300, voter ID cards to 22,488 and digital locker facilities to 22,888 individuals through the ABCD campaign. The drive was launched in November 2021 in Thondarandu Grama Panchayat.
Rajan, 38, an illiterate tribal from Kunduvayal hamlet, and his family are living in a makeshift hut covered with plastic sheets on a relative’s land in the Meenangadi gram panchayat. While various projects are being implemented for landless tribal families and many of their friends and relatives have taken advantage of the incentives, Rajan said they were denied free ration during the COVID-19 pandemic due to lack of documents. was given.
“I attended the ABCD campaign organized by the Wayanad district administration in Meenangadi a few weeks back, as directed by a tribal promoter. As I have now got the basic documents like Aadhaar Card and Ration Card, I can avail the benefits of government incentives.
Shrutisha, a 28-year-old tribal woman from the Godavari tribal settlement of Thavinhal gram panchayat, lost her ration card during the 2018 floods. Although he had approached several offices for a new one, he was refused due to “technical reasons”. However, now she has not only received a ration card from the ABCD campaign but also other facilities like a bank account, health insurance and welfare pension for her father. The officials have also uploaded all the documents in the digital locker.
Wayanad district collector A Geetha said, “We have so far conducted 26 campaigns across the district in collaboration with the revenue and tribal development departments, the district IT mission and local administrative bodies.” Hindu,
The objective of the campaign is to ensure basic documents for all citizens belonging to Scheduled Tribe communities and these documents are digitized and saved in DigiLocker accounts opened for them, Ms. Geeta said.
Since all the concerned departments are brought under one roof at one camp, each beneficiary gets all the necessary services at the camp itself, saving them the time and effort of visiting multiple offices, Wayanad Sub-Collector R. . According to Srilakshmi.
Ms. Srilakshmi, who is also the nodal officer for the programme, said that apart from basic documents, other services like income certificate, ownership certificate, age certificate and application for new pension are also provided at the camps.
He said that digitizing the documents through DigiLocker would help the beneficiaries to retrieve the documents easily in case of loss or damage to the documents.