FIR against six women, village pradhan and govt officials

The Fatehpur district administration has found irregularities in the widow pension scheme after it came to light that women, whose husbands were still alive, were withdrawing money under the scheme.

“The preliminary probe found that there were 19 such women on whose names the widow pensions were being withdrawn. I have ordered for a detailed inquiry in all the tehsils to find other irregularities, if any, in the scheme,” Fatehpur District Magistrate Guru Prashad told The Indian Express.

The administration is probing other 54 such cases, Prashad added.

In all these cases, each of the beneficiary received Rs 300 per month since 2006, amounting to a loss of lakhs of rupees to the state exchequer.

The administration lodged an FIR against nine persons — six women, the village pradhan of Rampur, a primary school teacher and gram vikas adhikari — on October 23.

The irregularities came to the fore after Amol Singh, former village pradhan of Rampur under Khaga tehsil, filed a complaint at Tehsil diwas alleging that 19 beneficiaries of the scheme in his village were not widows. Soon, the district magistrate ordered an inquiry and found the allegations to be true.

The inquiry also revealed the involvement of the incumbent village pradhan, Mahesh Nishad, and gram vikas adhikari, Harish Chandra, since the applications of these women were forwarded and verified by them, sources said. A teacher at Rampur primary school, Moti Lal, has also been named in the FIR as he was also involved in the verification process. Prashad said more FIRs would be lodged against other women and officials in this connection.

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