MP Orders Statewide Verification Of PM POSHAN Cooks After 74,000 Record Irregularities

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The government has ordered a statewide verification of cook-cum-helper records under the PM POSHAN (mid-day meal) scheme after identifying suspected irregularities in more than 74,000 registrations and payment records on the scheme's portal.

Around one lakh cooks and helpers are engaged in preparing mid-day meals for schoolchildren across the state. They receive an honorarium of Rs 2,000 per month.

The discrepancies surfaced during a review of the portal, where the names and addresses of registered cooks were found to be correct, but the linked bank accounts in several cases belonged to other individuals.

The findings have raised concerns over possible fraudulent payments in the scheme, under which nearly Rs 20 crore is disbursed every month as honorarium.

Following the review, the School Education Department and the Panchayat and Rural Development Department have directed all district collectors and chief executive officers (CEOs) of zila panchayats to conduct a detailed verification and update records by July 20.

The verification will cover e-KYC, Samagra ID authentication and bank account matching of all helpers. Honorarium will be released only after successful verification and updating of records on the portal.

The government will release honorarium only for the sanctioned number of verified cooks.

If any school is found to have registered more cooks than approved, the additional honorarium will have to be borne by the implementing agency and will not be paid by the state government.

Block-level scrutiny ordered

The government has also instructed Block Resource Coordinators (BRCs) to scrutinise records at the block level and verify cases of duplicate or multiple registrations.

Officials have been asked to ensure continuous monitoring of the exercise to make the payment system transparent and prevent fake entries.

Portal integration to strengthen monitoring

The government has also integrated the PM POSHAN portal with Education Portal 3.0 (EP 3.0).

Headmasters will now log in only through official EP 3.0 credentials, while registered login IDs have been made mandatory for BRC officials to strengthen monitoring and accountability.