They tweaked rules to enjoy benefits of Anna Bhagya

The Department of Food and Civil Supplies has taken measures to seize BPL cards issued to government and semi-government employees who were enjoying the benefits of the foodgrains, distributed through the fair price shops, meant for the persons belonging to below poverty line.

The department is also recovering the amount from these beneficiaries for all the rice they have received, so far. The list of ‘errant’ beneficiaries of Anna Bhagya scheme includes government employees, semi-government employees, primary and high school teachers, bank employees, staffers of the Transport department, railway employees, retired government employees, staffers of the Social Welfare department, etc, apart from parents of the children, who were employed in the government sector.

The list of such faulty beneficiaries were rounded up with the help of the owners of the fair price shops, anganwadi teachers and the Revenue department officials.

At present, as many as 575 government staffers have been identified. Among them, 270 of them have voluntarily surrendered their BPL cards. While, 305 ‘beneficiaries’ were identified by the department.

The process of registering criminal cases against 305 ‘beneficiaries’ is already on.
Notices have been issued to all the 575 beneficiaries who were illegally enjoying the benefits of the BPL cards and the rice they have received under the Anna Bhagya scheme will be recovered in the form of penalty at APL price.

So far, three wardens belonging to the Tumakuru Social Welfare department have been identified.

An amount of Rs 22,000 has been recovered from  Sakamma, Rs 25,000 and Rs 34,000 have been recovered from Shamadunnissa and Hemalatha respectively.

All the three have made the payments through the bank challan to the department.
The BPL cards of as many as 6,481 people have been cancelled on charge of violating rules and regulations laid down by the competent authority.

Among them, 383 cardholders are owners of four-wheelers while 4,397 people for other violations including availing of two or three BPL cards. At least, 1,126 people had applied for two or more cards by using the same voter identity card, the investigations have revealed.

Some of them even manipulated the rules by falsely enhancing the head count in the family, using the photographs of other children, to depict a large family.

Even such offences have been stumbled upon by the officials of the Food and Civil Supplies department, informed its Deputy Director Manteswamy, while speaking to Deccan Herald.

A second grade clerk in Kadalkere village of Pavagad taluk had also got a BPL card done in his wife’s name.

A retired inspector of the Food and Civil Supplies department, Veerabhadraiah, had issued a BPL card in his wife’s name. Criminal cases have been booked against these two offenders also, the deputy director informed.