Service centres in 5 districts tampered with family data

The Common Service Centres (CSCs) being operated in five districts have reportedly been found involved in tampering with the data of family IDs.

This came to the fore during an investigation being conducted by a joint team of the police and the Haryana Parivar Pehchan Authorities (HPPA). These CSCs are located in Sirsa, Fatehabad, Sonepat, Rohtak and Jhajjar. Acting swiftly, log-in access to the PPP portal of these centres has been blocked, said sources.

Three contractual employees working at the Citizen Resources Information Department (CRID) were arrested five days ago on charges of tampering with family details on the portal. Particulars under 'Deletion of unwanted member' column of these IDs were changed in the past few months.

“The investigation so far has disclosed that the log-in IDs of more than 10 such CSCs were illegally being used to delete the name of family members from the PPP without following the procedure. Either the CSC operators, or those who used the log-in IDs, were perpetrating this illegal act in lieu of money,” the sources said.

They claimed that over 6,000 doubtful family IDs belonging to various districts were being scanned to ascertain whether all formalities were fulfilled before deleting the name of any family member. Since the number was considerable, extra employees had been roped in to complete the process at the earliest.

“All those IDs will be brought to their original form, whose particulars will be found amended against the norms. Many such IDs have already been identified and their holders are being questioned to know from where they got the name of any family member deleted from the ID,” the sources informed.

Arun Mahendru, security analyst, HPPA, said all centres were being traced whose link was getting established with the tampering of data. “The log-in IDs of many centres have been blocked,” he added.

Meanwhile, the district administration has made a recommendation for the termination of services of all three contractual employees. Two of them had been working there for the past two years while the operator was employed some months ago.

“Since prime facie, the involvement of all three employees has been found in getting unauthorised access of the portal and tampering with data, I have recommended the state authorities for their removal from CRID services,” said Saloni Sharma, ADC, Jhajjar.