Loot in the name of people of soil

SCAM CENTRAL

Loot in the name of people of soil

In This Fourth Part Of A Series On Scams In Tamil Nadu, TOI Takes A Look At PM Kisan Scheme Where Govt Officials, Contract Employees And Internet Owners Colluded To Divert Money To Fake Beneficiaries

Team TOI  30.10.2020 

On October 7, a division bench of Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice B Pugalendhi observed that though there were several schemes meant for farmers, the status of the farming community remains the same as the benefits of the schemes do not reach them.

The judges then sought from the state government details of Union and state government schemes for farmers welfare, particularly Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, the number of ineligible beneficiaries enrolled, cases registered, people arrested for malpractices and monitoring mechanism put in place.

The PM Kisan scam has not only turned out to be a telling example of how funds routed to the states for welfare work was being looted but also a reminder for putting in place checks and balances to prevent such misappropriation.

The scheme provides ₹6,000 per year in three instalments for small farmers to procure farm inputs like fertilizers to ensure that yield does not drop because of fund crunch midway through cultivation. A network of junior agriculture department officers, contract staff in agriculture offices and internet centre owners joined hands to siphon off the money by enrolling non-farmers, making multiple entries and enrolling family members of farmers.

More than 5.5 lakh ineligible beneficiaries, mostly non-farmers, swindled more than ₹110 crore from the exchequer. Middlemen, who facilitated the fraud, got at least ₹50 crore as their share from the beneficiaries, investigations reveal. There were multiple beneficiaries in many families and there were also instances of migrant workers being enrolled as TN farmers under the scheme. The CB-CID has arrested more than 100 people so far in the case.

The state government has claimed to have recovered more than ₹100 crore and is figuring out ways and means to plug the loopholes in implementation of the schemes. Of the 5.5 lakh ineligible beneficiaries, there were 70,000 in Cuddalore district of northern Tamil Nadu alone who received upto ₹13 crore under the scheme. The government has recovered ₹11.5 crore so far. In neighbouring Villupuram and Kallakurichi districts, epicentres of the scam, more than ₹30 crore was disbursed illegally to more than one lakh ineligible beneficiaries. The CB-CID sleuths have arrested close to 40 temporary staff members posted at agriculture department and at common service centres in the two districts.

Initially, the beneficiaries were identified by both revenue and agriculture departments and the details were uploaded in the PM-Kisan portal. The uploaded data were validated through their Aadhaar cards and their account numbers were verified using the public finance management system by the Centre. The procedure was followed from December 2018 to March 2019.

The Centre introduced a new provision in April 2019 authorising self-registration through the ‘farmers’ corner’ on the portal. The Centre again authorised common service centres to implement the scheme last November.

During the initial period, the joint directors of agriculture verified and approved the farmers’ registration by logging on to the district-level login page. The Centre subsequently gave provision to block-level users to approve the selfregistered farmers and CSC-registered farmers to reduce processing time. It was then that the ineligible people managed to upload their details on the portal and get their applications approved and started receiving the financial assistance of ₹2,000 every trimester.

The state government blamed the pandemic, which forced much of the government officials to focus on Covid battle giving room for touts and agri staff to exploit the gaps in the self-registration process. “But we have acted swiftly in detecting the irregularities, recovering the money and bringing to book the violators,’’ agriculture minister R Doraikannu said last month.

Agri officials are also upbeat that they could go behind perpetrators of the scam without any political influence. “The follow up action has been a role model,’’ said a senior agriculture officer. Soon after the irregularities were detected state agriculture secretary Gagandeep Singh Bedi held video conferences with district collectors every week, while other top bureaucrats in the department tracked the follow up action on a daily basis.

But there are questions that still remain unanswered. Only contract staff of the agri department and internet centre owners have been arrested. There are no answers yet from the government to the question if a scam of this scale would happen without the knowledge if not connivance of agri officials.

Several north Indian guest workers were included as beneficiaries in districts like Salem and Dharmapuri. Though their accounts have been frozen, recovery of money from them has not happened since they have left for their hometowns due to lockdowns. Officials are yet to figure out a way to recover money from them. “We have informed the state officials about this situation. We don’t know how to proceed,’’ said an agri officer from Salem.

The next instalment is scheduled for December/January and almost 40 lakh eligible farmers are expected to get the money in their bank accounts. At the same time there are complaints from the farming community that in several places genuine farmers have been left out of the scheme. The onus is now on the government to ensure a flawless selfregistration process to enrol genuine beneficiaries and ensure they get the benefits before December.

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