The Department of Agriculture has recovered ₹16 crore credited into the bank accounts of over 50,000 ineligible beneficiaries under the PM-KISAN Nidhi scheme in Villupuram district so far.
A senior official said that out of the 1,60,000 ineligible beneficiaries, as many as 1,10,000 were from Villupuram district, while 50,000 were from other districts.
The scheme, conceived in 2018, aims to give ₹6,000 a year in three instalments to farmers who own up to two hectares of cultivable land.
Official sources said that while the first phase of registration of beneficiaries went off smoothly, the discrepancies came to light only in the subsequent phases after March. The Department has terminated the services of 11 contractual staff for conniving with middlemen and private computer service centres for enrolment of ineligible beneficiaries, the official added.
Probe widened
Sources from the Crime-Branch CID said that the ongoing probe was now widened and the role of officials at the block-level in enumerating ineligible beneficiaries without exercising due diligence was being looked into in detail.
“The probe also revealed that around 25 persons in each block were responsible for the enrolment of ineligible beneficiaries. More arrests are likely as the CB-CID team is investigating the role of officials and contractual staff in all the 12 blocks in the district,” an officer said.