Of the Rs 110 crore-plus money looted through this fraud, Rs 32 crore has been retrieved, mostly from bank accounts directly.
With money withdrawn fraudulently online with the help of government officials and local-level politicians, the Tamil Nadu government has discovered a scam amounting to over Rs 110 crore in the PM-KISAN scheme, the Indian Express reported. Taking the advantage of clearance norms being relaxed after the Covid-19 lockdown began, initial estimates show nearly five-and-a-half lakh people may have benefited.
Gagandeep Singh Bedi, the Principal Secretary, said they first noticed the unusually high number of beneficiaries being added to the scheme in August, especially from 13 districts. 80-odd officials associated with agricultural schemes have been dismissed and 34 officials suspended, while 18 people, all ‘agents’ or ‘brokers’, have been arrested, said Bedi.
Of the Rs 110 crore-plus money looted through this fraud, Rs 32 crore has been retrieved, mostly from bank accounts directly. They expected to retrieve the remaining amount too, within 40 days, the government said.
With men posing as officials asking them for their details so that they could receive “Corona cash” from the government, many people who were added onto the list of beneficiaries illegally were reportedly unaware of the fraud.
Rs 6,000 is paid annually to a member of a landholding family, in three instalments under the PM-Kisan or Pradhan Mantri-Kisan Samman Nidhi Scheme. With district authorities approving the same using a login and password, since March, this has been cleared on the basis of entry of details such as names, size of plots, and bank and Aadhaar details of beneficiaries on a government portal. The officials involved in the scam allegedly provided the login and password details to brokers. In return, the latter earned Rs 2,000 per beneficiary.
“A crime syndicate was behind this, working out of computer centres in local areas. Brokers collected details of individuals and got the same approved with the help of officials,” Bedi, who’s also the agricultural production commissioner, said. He also added that more arrests can take place in this case.
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