look news india
News India Live, Digital Desk: Large scale rigging has been revealed in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) made for the poor in Uttar Pradesh. The recent report of CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) has exposed the misuse of government money and providing benefits to ineligible people. The report shows that crores of rupees were given to people who were not entitled to this scheme.
So what is the whole matter?
CAG investigation revealed that under the scheme, Rs 9.52 crore was given to 1,838 beneficiaries who were not eligible. The most shocking thing is that out of these, Rs 2.62 crore has not been recovered even today. In many cases, people who already had good houses or were in government jobs were also given the benefit of this scheme.
Game of millions in the name of “UNKNOWN”
Another big revelation has come in the report. By taking advantage of ‘UNKNOWN’ names in SECC (Socio-Economic Caste Census) data, a fraud of Rs 50.28 crore was committed in 3,354 houses. This means that lakhs of rupees were transferred here and there using fake names or entries. Apart from this, ₹86.20 lakh meant for 159 beneficiaries was diverted to other accounts through cyber fraud. That means the money of the entitled people reached someone else’s pocket.
Help came slowly, many did not get it at all!
Not only the ineligible, but the real deserving ones also had to face problems. CAG said that 79% of the beneficiaries were delayed by more than seven working days in getting the first installment. Not only this, assistance worth Rs 20.18 crore, which was to be given to 11,031 beneficiaries till August 2024, has not been distributed yet, on which questions have been raised. , [
Flaws in financial accounting also
Between 2017 and 2023, the Uttar Pradesh government spent a total of ₹ 40,231 crore on this scheme. Of this, Rs 37,984 crore was spent on building houses and Rs 157 crore were spent on administrative expenses. But the surprising thing is that due to less administrative expenditure, the state got ₹357 crore less from the central government.
Arbitrariness in adding and removing names
The CAG report also shows that 34.71 lakh PMAY-G houses were approved in UP during 2016-17 to 2022-23, out of which 34.18 lakh (98.48%) houses were completed by March 2024. But serious flaws were found in the identification of beneficiaries. After the initial list was released in May 2016, the survey was conducted again in July 2017, yet a large number of genuine entitlements were left out of the ‘permanent waiting list’. CAG believes that all this happened due to data manipulation or wrong data collection. At some places, beneficiaries were selected arbitrarily by ignoring the priority list.
Overall, this CAG report points to the lack of planning and monitoring in the PM Awas Yojana-Rural, which has a direct impact on those poor families who are dreaming of having their own permanent home. UP housing scheme report, CAG exposed, housing scheme transparency