Inspection begins to weed out fake beneficiaries

  • | Monday | 10th December, 2018

LSGD is also planning to act tough against beneficiaries of LIFE scheme who have not initiated construction. In case of housing schemes undertaken by other departments, it wasn’t the case ,” said M Sivasankar, CEO of the mission. In the meantime, beneficiaries also received funds from the corporation.The houses built using both funds were later sold or leased on rent. Thiruvananthapuram: Local self-government department ( LSGD ) has initiated a field inspection to spot cases of wilful fraud in housing schemes where beneficiaries accepted instalments but never used it for house construction. When LIFE Housing Mission was launched, around 80,000 houses, built under old housing schemes, were found to be incomplete.As many as 54,036 houses were included under LIFE scheme, of which 49,016 were completed till December.

Thiruvananthapuram: Local self-government department ( LSGD ) has initiated a field inspection to spot cases of wilful fraud in housing schemes where beneficiaries accepted instalments but never used it for house construction. When LIFE Housing Mission was launched, around 80,000 houses, built under old housing schemes, were found to be incomplete.As many as 54,036 houses were included under LIFE scheme, of which 49,016 were completed till December. Around 11,000 beneficiaries, who were enrolled under old housing schemes and had received instalments for construction, were not found during inspection.LSGD has asked local bodies to begin an inspection to find if ineligible beneficiaries had accepted government aid or had utilized the same for other purposes. The department has instructed officials to detect such cases and recover the amount with interest. LSGD is also planning to act tough against beneficiaries of LIFE scheme who have not initiated construction. An action plan is being framed to exclude such people from all future housing schemes.“Some people had left the state. We began this inspection mainly to know why there were so many incomplete homes in state,” said LSGD joint secretary Patsy Stephen.LIFE scheme had considered incomplete houses under various schemes implemented by local bodies since 2001. The instalment received by beneficiaries would vary, depending on the year in which the schemes were implemented.“During preliminary assessment, we found that schemes implemented by local bodies were mostly complete. In case of housing schemes undertaken by other departments, it wasn’t the case ,” said M Sivasankar, CEO of the mission. He added that chances of fraud in LIFE scheme were minimal because of geo-tagging.Thiruvananthapuram corporation was forced to introduce strict regulations while signing agreement with beneficiaries for the housing scheme in coastal wards after officials detected a series of anomalies. The project implementation cell had found three kinds of cases.While some beneficiaries kept receiving funds without even building houses, some withheld their original land document and procured a possession certificate from the village officer to get funds. Later, the original document was kept as collateral at some financial institution to secure loans. In the meantime, beneficiaries also received funds from the corporation.The houses built using both funds were later sold or leased on rent. Some beneficiaries had even built houses using tsunami fund and later managed to get funds from corporation so that they could sell it or rent it. Officials had come across cases where beneficiaries took pictures from a different site and presented photographs of newly-built homes to receive the last fund allotment.

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