Hyderabad, Mar 31 (PTI) The CAG has found loopholes in the implementation of the Telangana government’s ‘Kalyana Lakshmi’ scheme, which resulted in ineligible beneficiaries receiving the benefit.
Kalyana Lakshmi is a welfare scheme, introduced by the previous BRS government in 2014, to alleviate financial distress of parents in conducting the marriage of daughters by providing financial assistance of Rs 1,00,116.
In its report for the period ended March 2022, the Comptroller and Auditor General said analysis of data of Kalyana Lakshmi and scrutiny of records at Revenue Divisional Offices and Tahsildar offices indicated that “adequate controls” were not provided to ensure compliance with government orders for implementation of the scheme effectively.
Adequate controls were not put into the system to ensure that only eligible beneficiaries avail of the scheme.
As a result, the audit noticed it was being extended to ineligible beneficiaries such as under-aged brides, brides whose parents’ income was more than the eligible criteria, brides married prior to the date of introduction of scheme, etc, involving a total money value of Rs 55.12 crore in 5,522 cases test-checked in audit, it said.
There was no system of cross-checking database of different beneficiary-oriented schemes implemented by the state government and the Centre, the CAG report, tabled in the Assembly, said.
Lack of an adequate communication mechanism and grievance redressal system resulted in beneficiaries’ repeated visits to Tahsildar offices to know the status of their applications and also in delayed distribution of cheques as the state government did not introduce online transfer of incentives to beneficiary accounts, it added. PTI SJR SJR KH
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