33.7% beneficiaries found ineligible

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, November 17

The procedure of re-verification of cards issued to the beneficiaries of the Atta-Dal Scheme is almost complete. Close to 33.7 per cent of the total cards, which were scrutinised, have been found ineligible.

After coming to power, the Congress government had ordered a verification of the authenticity of the beneficiaries of various social welfare schemes. The objective of the verification was to make sure that the funds were being used judiciously and that the schemes were not misused to expand the vote base ahead of the Assembly elections. Though the verification work was to be completed by September, it got delayed and was completed a few days ago.

The department of the District Food and Supplies Controller (DFSC) received 2,16,129 applications for the re-verification of cards. In the Bathinda subdivision, 31,854 beneficiaries were found ineligible while 69,159 beneficiaries eligible.

In the Rampura subdivision, 31,799 beneficiaries were verified while the cards of 16,191 were listed as ineligible. In Maur, the numbers were recorded at 19,309 and 11,652 for the eligible and ineligible beneficiaries, respectively. In the Talwandi Sabo subdivision, 9,477 were found ineligible.

Additional 2,503 have made it to the ‘absentee’ list as the beneficiaries were either not at home or could not be contacted by teams present for the verification.

The list of these beneficiaries has been sent to the subdivisions and in case these beneficiaries reach the depots for claiming the benefit under the scheme, their credentials will be verified first.

As per the information received from teams, one of the major reason for a beneficiary being declared ineligible to claim the benefit under the scheme was the availability of an air-conditioner or car with the applicant or his/her family. In other cases, land holdings of the beneficiaries were found to be bigger than that mentioned in the eligibility criteria.

In some cases, the cards were also cancelled as the teams found that the beneficiary had passed away but the families were seeking the benefit on one pretext or the other.

In July, as per the guidelines of the state government, the District Food and Civil Supplies Department had constituted 350 teams for the verification work at the village and city level.