Early Times Report
JAMMU, Mar 4: While taking stock of the functioning of Social Welfare Department, the State Vigilance Commission (SVC) recommended to government quick implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme for disbursement of cash under various Central and State Government Schemes.
This recommendation was made after Director, Vigilance Organization and officers of Organization brought out that there are large number of cases of alleged embezzlement and irregularities under investigation and enquiry in the organization in a meeting held today at the Commission headquarters in Jammu, which among others was attended by Commissioner/Secretary to Government, Social Welfare Department also.
While giving brief of various complaints, enquiries and investigations, the Director Vigilance revealed that most cases pertain to illegalities committed in disbursement of scholarships to students, Pension to aged under National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS), payments being made to widows and destitutes under National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) and Integrated Social Security Scheme and procurement of supplementary nutrition for children at centres. Cases have been detected where payments have been shown made under Scholarship and other Schemes to non-existent students/persons, more than one payment to same student, procurement of food items at exorbitant rates, besides misappropriation in NOAPS,NSAP and ISSS. It has been detected that in number of cases the benefits of these schemes have not reached the actual beneficiaries and in many cases less payments have been made to the deserving than shown in the records.
431 complaints of corruption have been referred by Vigilance Organization to Social Welfare Department during past five years, out of which action has been initiated in 181 cases.
Besides, there are 6 cases where Vigilance Organization after thorough enquiry found that strong evidence exists for action against delinquent officials and recommended regular departmental action (RDA) against them. The meeting was chaired by Kuldeep Khoda, Chief Vigilance Commissioner and was attended by Dr. R. K. Jerath, Vigilance Commissioner, Sheikh Owais, Director Vigilance Organization, Sanjeev Verma, Commissioner/Secretary to Govt, Social Welfare Department, Alok Puri, IGP (Vigilance), Gazanfar Ahmad, Director Social Welfare Department, Kashmir, SM. S. Choudhary, Director, Social Welfare Department, Jammu and others. |
