Lakhs of thieves?

Assam Agriculture Minister Atul Bora has finally admitted that there is a huge scam in his department. That he on Thursday ordered 100% re-verification of all beneficiaries of the PM KISAN (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi) scheme across the state is enough to understand what he has indirectly said. Minister Bora has also said that after the process of re-verification is completed, all ineligible names will be deleted, and if they had got any monetary benefit under the scheme, then such persons will have to refund the amount. Legal action will also be initiated against such ineligible beneficiaries, as also against officials if found guilty, he has said. That there have been gross anomalies and large-scale irregularities in selection of beneficiaries under this ambitious scheme launched by none other than the Prime Minister himself can be understood from media reports that a number of such "beneficiaries" have already returned the money to the government in one district. Minister Bora himself has revealed that about Rs 11 lakh have been 'recovered' from the fake beneficiaries so far. What the government should have immediately done is to upload the list of all those who were selected for this scheme in Assam, so that the other people in the respective villages would have known who these "beneficiaries" are. Since Agriculture Minister Bora is also talking about transparency, he should do this. What he can additionally do is publish the names of officers in different districts who had prepared those lists, as also any recommendation slip or SMS which they had probably received from MLAs, MPs, and other influential political functionaries. According to Minister Bora, a few months back departmental inquiries were conducted in several districts, during which about seven lakh ineligible names were detected in the beneficiaries' lists. Seven lakh is not a small figure. Who are these seven lakh people? How did they get selected? If preliminary inquiries have detected seven lakh people, then what would be the likely total figure after a thorough statewide investigation? Can Minister Bora, or for that matter Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal assure and ensure that the investigation will be fair? Who are conducting the investigations? There must be some kingpin somewhere who had influenced the officers of the agriculture department to include the fake beneficiaries? Otherwise, can a set of petty officers carry out such a fraud simultaneously across the state? 

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