Kerala welfare pension fraud: 6 govt officials get suspension

Thiruvananthapuram: In the matter of social welfare pension fraud in Kerala, the state agriculture department suspended six officials from the Soil Conservation Department.

Earlier, the finance department forwarded the agriculture department details of officials who were receiving welfare pensions illegally. Based on this, the Agricultural Development Commission and others held a meeting and found that six officials of the Soil Conservation Department were illegally collecting the pension. The soil department suspended them after this.

The six officials were identified as K.A. Sajitha, G. Sheeja Kumari, P. Bhargavi, K. Leela, K. Rajani and Naseed.

The government has initiated steps to recover the money from the officials who illegally received social welfare pensions. The money will be recovered along with 18 per cent interest.

However, action against welfare pension fraud has been rolled out only in the agriculture department. Serious irregularities were found in an inspection conducted by the Information Kerala Mission on the instructions of the Finance Department, and it was found that 1,458 government employees had illegally acquired pensions.

When the Finance Department released the list of those receiving pensions, there was criticism over the abundance of ineligible names on the list and why no action was taken against the officials.

From sweepers in government offices to higher secondary teachers and assistant professors, were included in the list of fraudsters who illegally acquired pensions allocated for the poor. The irregularities were caught after checking the welfare pension data using Aadhaar details in Spark Data, an online system for the salary distribution of government officials.

Of the two assistant professors receiving welfare pensions, one works in a government college in Thiruvananthapuram district and the other in a government college in Palakkad. Three higher secondary teachers were on the list, while the health department has the highest number of fraudsters. The general education department is in second place with 224, with 124 people in the medical education department, 114 in the ayurveda department, 74 in the animal husbandry department and 47 in the public works department.

In the wake of the irregularities, the finance department has decided to continue inspections at various levels. Sources in the department have clarified that the ineligible people on the pension lists will be identified and eliminated, and pensions will be distributed to the eligible ones.