HYDERABAD: The CAG has flagged serious lapses in the implementation of the Kalyana Lakshmi Pathakam, noting that in several cases beneficiaries first availed KCR Kits, delivered babies and later accessed benefits under the scheme.
The name of the husband is recorded when a pregnant woman avails KCR kit. As the names of husbands matched in all the 7,314 cases, it indicates that the marriages in these cases took place before the dates mentioned in Kalyana Lakshmi Pathakam applications. Given the mismatch between databases of the two schemes for the same beneficiaries, the possibility of incorrect marriage certificates being submitted cannot be ruled out. As a result, financial assistance sanctioned under Kalyana Lakshmi Pathakam in 7,314 cases, amounting to Rs 72.91 crore, was not in order. Of this, Rs 19.15 crore in 1,917 cases pertained to test-checked RDOs, the CAG report said.
When the audit flagged the issue, the RDOs concerned stated that applications under Kalyana Lakshmi Pathakam were processed and sanctioned after due verification as per government orders. They added that there is no mechanism to cross-check beneficiary details with KCR KIT data at the time of processing applications, the report said.
The CAG also noted from the Kalyana Lakshmi Pathakam database that the department extended financial assistance of Rs 2.04 lakh for four girls where the date of marriage was prior to the sanction of the amount.
As per scheme guidelines, the bride should have completed 18 years of age at the time of marriage. Scrutiny of applications in test-checked Tahsildar offices revealed that two brides below 18 years of age at the time of marriage were sanctioned assistance of Rs 2 lakh under the scheme. Audit scrutiny further revealed that the system does not have a provision to validate the age of the bride.
The auditor also noticed cases where benefits were extended to ineligible beneficiaries, including underage brides, brides whose parents’ income exceeded the eligibility criteria and brides married prior to the introduction of the scheme, involving a total amount of Rs 55.12 crore in 5,522 cases.
The detailed compliance audit on Kalyana Lakshmi Scheme was conducted for the period from 2019-20 to 2021-22, covering offices of Revenue Divisional Officers (RDOs) and Tahsildars selected on a sample basis for scrutiny of records. Out of 72 RDOs in the state, 25 were selected using the simple random sampling method for detailed scrutiny.