CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu failed to receive eligible grants of Rs 1515.60 crore under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) due to non-fulfilment of stipulated conditions from 2016 to 2021, CAG report said.
The other major lapses noticed included non-receipt of union government grant, non-inclusion of eligible beneficiaries, shortfall in coverage of SC/ST beneficiaries, fraudulent sanction of houses and poor monitoring.
Out of Rs 3798.37 crore eligible, as of October 2021, a sum of Rs 2,282.77 crore (60%) alone was received by the state. Similarly, the union government did not release the second installment for 2018-19 and installments due for 2019-20, as the proposal of state government was not in the prescribed format.
“Delay in achieving targets, failure in earmarking 60% target for SC/ST community and delay in submission of audit reports resulted in non-availing of central assistance of Rs 1515.60 crore,” the report said. During 2016-21, a total of 5.09 lakh houses were sanctioned, of which only 2.8 lakh were completed. Failure in planning and oversight had resulted in non-achievement of target of sanctioning 60% of houses to SC/ST households.
The report also said a considerable number of SC/ST households were removed from socio-economic and caste census (SECC) data, without valid reasons. Utilising loopholes in SECC data, a significant number of houses under PMAY scheme were sanctioned to ineligible persons in a fraudulent manner.
“SECC data, which forms the basis for identification of beneficiaries, had a significant number of households with one or more members named ‘UNKNOWN’. This weakness of SECC data was misused and a substantial number of houses were sanctioned in a fraudulent manner. In the sampled blocks, by misusing ‘UNKNOWN’ in the name field of SECC data, a total of 3,354 houses were irregularly sanctioned to ineligible beneficiaries, involving an irregular expenditure of Rs 50.28 crore.
The number of houses sanctioned in a fraudulent manner may increase if this issue is examined for the entire state,” the report said. Revealing the modus operandi of the fraud, the report cited that UNKNOWN’ beneficiaries were selected and replaced by a person from a different family, at the time of issuing sanction order for houses.