Explainer: ‘Aapki Beti Hamari Beti’ scheme scam: Dept recovering excess amount paid from beneficiaries

The CAG has highlighted a multiple crore scam in ‘Aapki Beti Hamari Beti’ where 7,723 beneficiaries were found to be registered more than once. There are cases where the registration of the same beneficiary has taken place two, three, four, five, six, or even nine times. Though the Women and Child Development Department has initiated the recovery after the audit pointed it out, the full amounthas not been recovered yet.What is the objective of ‘Aapki Beti Hamari Beti Scheme’?To improve the child sex ratio in the state, the Haryana Government notified on August 2015 operational guidelines of ‘Aapki Beti Hamari Beti Scheme’ (ABHB). The scheme covers the first girl child born in families belonging to the Scheduled Castes and all families below the poverty line, as well as second or twin girls born on or after January 22, 2015, in any family in Haryana. The scheme further included all families whose third girl child was born on or after August 24, 2015, to receive the benefits in March 2017.Under the scheme, all beneficiaries receive a one-time grant of Rs 21,000. The money is invested with Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in the name of the beneficiary through her mother, father or guardian by the office of the District Programme Officer (DPO). LIC issues a membership certificate in favour of each beneficiary. The maturity value of the investment was payable after attaining 18 years of age.How can one apply for the scheme?According to the procedure adopted by the Department, beneficiaries are required to submit their applications through the SARAL portal. The applications are forwarded to the Women and Child Development Project Officer (WCDPO) for verification of eligibility and duplication checks. After scrutiny of the applications, they are sent to the DPO concerned for approval, sanction and depositing the amount with LIC.What CAG has found in the scheme?During the scrutiny of records at the DPO, Sonepat (October 2022) and WCDPO Julana, Jind (November 2022), the Audit noticed that the department had made payments of a one-time grant of Rs 21,000 to LIC multiple times for several beneficiaries under the ABHB scheme. Thereafter, the LIC data of other districts was also called for from the office of the Director-General (DG), WCD. Scrutiny of the data revealed that the state enrolled 3,60,188 girl beneficiaries for the period from January 2015 to July 2022 and paid a premium of Rs 756.39 crore (Rs 21,000 for each beneficiary) to LIC.On application of duplicate filter (on name, date of birth, name of their father and mother) on the data, audit found that 7,723 beneficiaries were registered more than once (two or three or four or five or six or nine times).“Thus, multiple LIC certificates in 8,238 cases were issued to these 7,723 beneficiaries, resulting in excess payment of Rs 17.30 crore,” says CAG in its report, tabled before the Haryana Vidhan Sabha in the Monsoon session.The CAG noticed that the processes of the ABHB scheme were not automated. Functions such as making a list of beneficiaries, drawing funds from the treasury, and sending the list to LIC were done manually. “Hence, there was no mechanism at the district level to identify and weed out duplicate beneficiaries during the processing of applications for approval and sanctioning of funds,” added the report.What did the department do after irregularities came to light?The department, while admitting the facts before the CAG, stated in July 2023 that it had recovered Rs 2.09 crore in 836 cases from LIC and was making continuous efforts to recover the balance amount. The department further stated that instructions had been issued to improve the IT system and assured that responsibility would be fixed on the officers/ officials concerned for the same. The department further intimated in September 2024 that it had recovered Rs 6.79 crore in 1,966 cases; however, no details of recovery were provided.“Thus, due to the lack of a mechanism to identify and weed out duplicate beneficiaries under the scheme during the processing of applications for approval and sanctioning of funds, resulted in grant of multiple benefits to 7,402 beneficiaries, which led to extra payment amounting to Rs 15.54 crore to LIC. The matter was referred (March 2023) to the government for reply/comments; their reply was awaited (January 2025),” said the CAG report.The CAG recommended, “The state government should take steps to recover the excess payments made under the scheme and plug the loopholes in the portal to prevent duplication of beneficiaries in future.”

Explainer: ‘Aapki Beti Hamari Beti’ scheme scam: Dept recovering excess amount paid from beneficiaries

Tribune News Service

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