Some of the ‘beneficiaries’ of Kerala's paltry social security pension have BMWs parked in their homes while the real beneficiaries still wait for the amount to buy medicines and other essentials. Apart from this, some of the ‘beneficiaries’ reportedly include gazetted officers, assistant professors, people who own houses with ACs, regular pensioners and those who are not alive.
The scam that has rocked Kerala came to light during a routine audit by the Kerala Finance Department. The maximum fraudulent ¢laimants were from the Health Department and from Kottalckal Municipality in Malappuram district, where a targeted audit revealed 38 out of 42 pension recipients examined were ineligible.
The Finance Department has now expanded the audit statewide, aiming to cleanse the beneficiary list of all ineligible recipients. Probe ordered after widescale abuse found of social e-security pension Kerala's social security pension scheme supports vulnerable groups, including the elderly, widows, and people with disabilities.
The state offers a monthly pension of Rs 1600 to approximately 6.2 million beneficiaries. Finance Department officials suspect corruption and collusion behind the largescale inclusion of affluent individuals in the welfare scheme. Cases of ineligible beneficiaries residing in lavish homes exceeding 2,000 square feet and spouses of government pensioners claiming welfare pensions have also surfaced. The government has said that strict action would be taken against those who claimed social security pension falsely and also the local panchayat and municipal officials who certified the poor financial status of such rich individuals.
However, despite demands from the Opposition, the government is reluctant to name and shame the individuals as most of them are reportedly Left leaning supporters. State Finance Minister K N Balagopal has ordered avigilance inquiry into officials who facilitated these irregularities. He said all the pensions claimed illegally would be recovered with interest and action taken against the claimants.
Earlier, this week, the state-owned Information Kerala Mission (IKM), published a report stating that at least 1,458 serving government officials including Gazetted officers, have been regularly receiving the monthly assistance, adds IANS. In 2022, the CAG report pointed out that the list includes over 9,000 ineligible people who took away Rs 39 crores in the three-year period starting in 2017.
As per the IKM estimates, a sum of Rs 23 lakh has been used to pay serving government officials this year. Among those who are currently getting the pension include school and college teachers, and the employees working in the health and other departments of the state government. In Kerala, there are around six million (60 lakh) people who get a monthly social welfare pension and at times it is deposited in arrears too.
