Raipur. Mahtari Vandan Yojana is an ambitious scheme of Chhattisgarh state. The government has taken major action after fraud came to light in this scheme. Virendra Joshi, who took advantage of the scheme in the name of Sunny Leone, has been arrested. The concerned Anganwadi worker Vedmati Joshi has been dismissed for serious negligence in this matter. Action has been taken to suspend supervisor Prabha Netam and project officer Jyoti Mathrani. At the same time, a clarification has also been issued to the then District Program Officer.In reality, the Mahtari Vandan amount has not been paid into Sunny Leone’s bank account, but a person named Virendra Kumar Joshi applied in the name of Sunny Leone in collusion with local people. He has done this with the intention of illegally obtaining the government amount by en
Virendra Kumar Joshi has applied fraudulently in the Anganwadi Centre Talur of Bastar block of Bastar district through the worker of Anganwadi Centre Talur in the name of Sunny Leone. In this application, he has entered his Aadhaar number and bank account details as other information. The responsibility of testing and verifying each application was to be done by the committee formed at the village level, which was to be done by the village in-charge/ward in-charge and Anganwadi worker. After this, the documents entered in the portal were to be tested by the Anganwadi worker in the first verification and by the supervisor in the second verification. Then it was to be approved by the project officer.
In this case, Anganwadi worker Vedmati Joshi, who is Virendra Kumar Joshi’s neighbour, verified the application made by Virendra Kumar Joshi in the name of Sunny Leone on the online portal without verifying the facts. Similarly, the supervisor also verified this application without checking, due to which the beneficiary with this fake name has been paid the amount in the form of DBT in the State Bank account linked to the Aadhaar number given by him.
Action has been taken to dismiss the concerned Anganwadi worker Vedmati Joshi for serious negligence in this matter. Action has been taken to suspend supervisor Prabha Netam and project officer Jyoti Mathrani. An explanation has also been issued to the then District Program Officer. Also, an FIR has been registered against Virendra Kumar Joshi and he has been arrested. Action is being taken to recover the amount paid by seizing his bank account.
The government intends that eligible women can get the benefit of the scheme, hence all the eligible beneficiaries who have applied have been included in the scheme. Detailed provisions have been made to implement the scheme, in which while developing online software to receive applications under the scheme, each field officer was provided separate ID/password. In the same sequence, the concerned Anganwadi worker was also provided ID/password. After receiving applications in the prescribed format from the beneficiaries under the scheme, the application forms were entered in the online portal by the Anganwadi worker and the village in-charge and the documents were uploaded after checking the attached documents.
There is a provision for the applications entered in the software to be verified first through the Gram Samiti and then by the Anganwadi worker. Then the responsibility of doing the second verification was assigned to the concerned sector supervisor, so that verification could be done at two levels. After verification, the committee constituted at the ward/panchayat level has published the provisional list and pasted this list at public places like Anganwadi Centre, Gram Panchayat etc. Villagers were given the opportunity to examine this list and make claims and objections against those who have applied incorrectly.
For the resolution of received claim objections, provision has been made for resolution by the committee constituted at the child development project level and after receiving the claim objections, more than 12000 wrong applications were rejected. After resolution of the claim objections, the final list was published. In order to ensure that such fake applications are not received even after determining the above procedures, field officials were continuously given instructions for the process of their verification and about 15 thousand wrong applications were identified and rejected.
The statement that 50 percent of applicants are fake is completely wrong
In the final list, 70,26,352 applicants have also been verified from various available data at the state level and Aadhaar verification has been done. Therefore, the statement that 50 percent of the applicants are fake is completely wrong. The department has, from time to time, verified at the field level, searched through software and identified more than 15000 wrong beneficiaries and removed them from the benefit list. The list of beneficiaries to be benefited is reflected on the ID of each Anganwadi center. The women of the state have received immense benefits from the Mahtari Vandan Yojana, such as the women have used this amount to spend on the health and nutrition of their children and themselves, save money and open Sukanya Samriddhi accounts and deposit it in the name of their daughters, on the education of children, on fulfilling their day-to-day needs and starting their own business, there are many examples of women empowerment like this.
Names of more than 21 thousand beneficiaries were removed after death
Adequate security measures have been taken while implementing the Mahtari Vandan Yojana. The application process is received at the level of Anganwadi worker and village/ward in-charge and the application along with all the documents is filled by the Anganwadi worker and village in-charge on the online portal. The applicants had also made a provision for applying online on their own. The department is constantly taking information about the authenticity of the beneficiaries at every level. Instructions have been issued from time to time. As a result of this, information of dead beneficiaries is also being taken and they are being removed from the benefit list. In the updated situation, more than 21 thousand beneficiaries have been removed from the benefit list due to death. In this way, the department is constantly taking prompt action to implement the scheme.
tering his Aadhaar and other information.
