Kolkata, July 1 (IANS) Around six lakh beneficiaries of the 100-day job scheme from South 24 Parganas under the former Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) during the previous Mamata Banerjee-led regime in West Bengal will not be a part of the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Scheme because their e-KYC is pending.

Insiders from the state secretariat of Nabanna explained that Aadhaar-based filtering and filling up of e-KYC is mandatory in the VB-G RAM G Scheme, which comes into effect in West Bengal from Wednesday.

Now, said a state government official on condition of anonymity, this filtering process revealed irregularities in the implementation of the MGNREGA scheme during the previous Trinamool Congress regime in South 24 Parganas district.

“Out of a total of 23,40,050 job card holders in 29 blocks in South 24 Parganas district, 5,82,998 job card holders currently have e-KYC pending and there has been no initiative so far on part of these beneficiaries to update the KYC. Our strong suspicion is that these 5.82 lakh odd beneficiaries had been fake job card holders who had been enjoying the benefits of the previous MGNREGA scheme so far illegally,” alleged the state government official.

“This, as we think, is just the tip of the iceberg. Shortly, detailed and district-wise data on the missing beneficiaries will be compiled and released,” claimed the state government official.

He further said that in South 24 Parganas, although the Block Development Officers (BDOs) issued repeated instructions for the missing beneficiaries to update their e-KYC, it failed to evoke a response.

The state government official explained that the state government had identified four major reasons why these missing beneficiaries could have refrained from updating their e-KYC.

“The first reason is the fear of getting identified as a fake job-card holder in the biometric system of recognition. Second is the fear of revealing the forgery where money was allotted in the previous regime in the name of deceased beneficiaries. The third reason is the name mismatch between Aadhaar card and job-card. The fourth reason is the possibility of money allotted in the name of migrant workers who are currently employed in other states,” the state government official.

The blocks in South 24 Parganas district where the numbers of such missing beneficiaries are maximum are Kulpi, Patharpratima, Baruipur, Gosaba, Basanti, Magrahat-I, Kultali, Canning -1 and Canning-2.

–IANS

src/rad