Officers of nearly a half dozen state government departments in Haryana state including Social Welfare, Development & Panchayat. Local Body, Health and Women & Child development are likely to be trapped in the net in alleged Rs 162 crore scam in which old-age pension amount has been wrongly distributed to a large number of eligible retired persons including several who have already died years ago. Ashima Barar Director General of the department of Social Justice, Schedule Caste and Backward Classes has already started action in this regard against officers and the staff responsible for the lapses, embezzlements that caused huge revenue loss for amount worth nearly Rs 162 crore to the government since year 2011 when Bhupinder Singh Hooda was chief minister in the state.
Information reveals that between year 1994 and 2012, old-age pension amount was paid by the government to 50312 pensioners already expired long ago as well as 13477 eligible persons and during investigation, of them only 2189 persons were detected genuine, thuse caused financial loss worth Rs 15 crore to the government due to utter neglect by the concerned officers. Among those getting pension amount, 1254 persons were found already died and there was no whereabout of another 554 persons, from them amount worth Rs 8 crore has already been recovered and the government have yet to recover Rs 7 crore from remaining persons have been getting pension amount wrongfully and action will be taken for recovery of this amount from those responsible for the neglect, Barar said.
According to information, as many as 41 officers of the social welfare department in Sirsa, Rohtak, Rewari, Faridabad, Panipat, Sonipat, Jind, Jhajjar, Hisar and Kaithal responsible for the negligence were served show cause notices on 18th May 2023, of them four officers have already been retired from the services, whereas two senior female officers have been charge-sheeted. According to rules, no action can be taken against those government employees who retired four years ago. Meanwhile, Vishambhar Valmiki State Minister of the department when asked said that he has demanded complete report in this regard and all those involved in irregularities cause heavy revenue loss to government, which is public money, will not be spared at any cost and the amount lost in this regard by the government will be recovered from the concerned officers responsible for the neglect.
