With rising complaints about fake beneficiaries of social welfare schemes, the state government has launched a verification drive on a war footing.

Suspecting at least 10 per cent fake beneficiaries of various schemes like old age pension, widow pension and pension for physically handicapped, 511 village workers, 97 gazetted officers, supervised by seven ADMs and monitored by the Chief Development Officer, have been given a week’s time to reach out to each and every village and block of various districts and personally verify each beneficiary.

The deadline for the drive is October 3. Majority of the complaints have come from villages in Bakshi Ka Talab and Malihabad areas.

In order to ensure that verification is done accurately, a checklist has been prepared for the village workers at the grass-roots level, which defines the criteria for these pensions.

These village workers are government paid employees like lekhpals, village secretaries, kisan sewak or even tube-well operators.

“We have ensured that each of these employees termed as village workers are given a particular village or block other than where they are posted,” said Kaushal Sharma, the Chief Development Officer, Lucknow.

“While the verification has begun at a war-footing level, the first review will be held on September 29,” said Sharma. “We have received complaints like those below 60 years of age are getting the benefit of the old age pension scheme. Women with their husbands alive have been entitled to widow pension,” added Sharma.

Maximum number of complaints have been reported regarding the old age pension. There are around 1.6 lakh beneficiaries of the scheme in Lucknow and the official sources inform that the initial inquiry reveals that there will atleast be 10 per cent fake or unauthorised beneficiaries of the scheme One such incident was revealed recently when the District Probation Officer found large scale anomalies in the widow pension scheme in Aain village of Banthara area at the outskirts of the city.

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