VILLUPURAM/KALLAKURICHI: Officials have recovered Rs 37 crore so far from illegal beneficiaries of the PM-KISAN scheme in the Villupuram and Kallakurichi districts. While 23 temporary staff have been arrested in Kallakurichi, 15 have been arrested in Villupuram.
A senior official from Villupuram agriculture department told TNIE, “Once the scam was identified, a State-level monitoring committee was appointed, with Joint-Director (agriculture) Jegannathan and Additional Director (agriculture) Shankaralingam, as members for Villupuram and Kallakurichi districts.
The committee has recovered Rs 17 crore from 60,000 miscreants, out of the 1.10 lakh beneficiaries in Villupuram. Also, about 70,000 illegal beneficiaries were identified in the Thiruvannamalai JD’s (agri) account.” CB-CID sources said that officials joined hands with operators of Common Service Centres (CSCs) to facilitate the scam.
“Passwords and usernames to the scheme’s site were leaked by officers in agriculture department to the operators at CSCs through which illegal beneficiaries were added,” said police.