No extra grains given to beneficiaries in Chhattisgarh during Covid: CAG

As many as 167.32 lakh beneficiaries holding priority household ration cards were not given additional food grains as envisaged under a central scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, national auditor CAG has said.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India's compliance audit report for the year ended March 31, 2021, was tabled in the state legislative assembly on Friday by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.

The report also highlighted irregularities in the functioning of fair price shops.

The Government of India launched the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) in March 2020 to mitigate the hardships faced by the poor and needy people due to economic disruptions caused by COVID-19 pandemic, the report said.

Under the scheme, an additional 5 kg of free rice per person per month was to be provided for distribution to all the beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

Coverage under NFSA is under two categories household under Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Household (PHH), the report said.

The scheme to provide extra rice was initially implemented for a period of eight months from April to November in 2020. The Centre implemented it again in April 2021 for the period May to November 2021, which was further extended up to March 2022, said the CAG report.

The Chhattisgarh government, prior to the launch of PMGKAY had been providing (since July 2019) additional quantities of rice every month at subsidised prices to these PHH beneficiaries based on the number of persons mentioned in each ration card, it said.

Accordingly, PHH card holders having only one person were provided with a total of 10 kg, two persons 20 kg, three to five persons 35 kg and more than five persons 7 kg per person per month at the subsidised rate of Re 1 per kilo. These quantities also included 5 kg of rice per person provided regularly by the Centre under NFSA before the launch of PMGKAY, it said.

After the launch of PMGKAY, the state government issued an order (in April 2020) with reference to the quantity of additional free rice, revising the total quantity of rice to be provided to PHH beneficiaries of the state. However, the revised quantities were either the same as before or slightly higher.

Due to withdrawal of additional quantity of rice earlier provided to beneficiaries by the state government, the NFSA and CG Food Security Act (FSA) beneficiaries were not benefited with additional quantity of rice at the rate of 5 kg per person over and above the existing entitlement, it said.

The audit found that one to three members of NFSA-PHH ration cardholder families were not benefited with additional rice and PHH cardholders having more than three members benefited with an additional quantity of 3 kg of rice per person instead of 5 kg per person, as envisaged under the PMGKAY.

A total of 31.05 lakh NFSA-PHH beneficiaries (one to three members) in the state were provided with the same quantity of rice that they were receiving prior to the implementation of the PMGKAY. Similarly, 136.27 lakh beneficiaries (PHH cards having more than three members) were provided with an additional quantity of only 3 kg per month.

Thus, 167.32 lakh NFSA-PHH beneficiaries in the state, were not benefitted with the additional support as intended under the scheme, it added.

Similarly, the Government of India launched Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme (ANBS) to provide 5 kg free rice to each person and 1 kg free chana to each family of migrants/stranded migrants, who were not covered under NFSA or state public distribution system (PDS) ration card scheme during the pandemic, it said.

However, the state government could not distribute free rice to 30,218 migrant/stranded persons and free chana to 20,395 migrant families identified under the ANBS, it said.

The report also underlined, during a joint inspection of 177 fair price shops (FPS) and interaction with 1,177 BPL (below poverty line) beneficiaries, it was found that monthly inspection was not carried out in 80 per cent of FPSs by the department and inspection registers were also not maintained.

Social audit was not found to have been conducted in 98 per cent fair price shops, it added.