The Modi government’s first nationwide scheme since coming to power -- Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme -- has come under the scanner. It has been reported that fake government forms assuring monetary benefits under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Abhiyaan are doing rounds in Nadia district of West Bengal. This is happening after the central government asked for a CBI probe into the matter.
The scheme does not offer any cash benefits and yet, women of Nadia queued up in front of the head post office since Wednesday (May 24) to submit their filled fake forms that promise an incentive of Rs 2 lakh under BBBP.
The situation got out of the Head post office’s hand and cops had to be deployed in the area to control the ruckus. “Women dropped the forms in stamped envelopes in the letter box. Some sent them through registered post and we were bound to receive it,” an official of the head post office told IE, refusing to be quoted.
“We had received over 200 application forms to be sent in registered post yesterday. We cannot tell you about today’s figures,” he said.
A district administration official said that there was a mad rush before the Ranaghat head post-office and the postal authorities sought help. “We sent some police personnel, including women, there.”
Nadia District Magistrate Sumit Gupta said that it has been ensured that no further information about fake forms gets circulated through the public address system. “Government officials and people’s representatives were also asked not to sign any such forms,” he added.
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When a few applicants were asked how they got to know about the scheme, one of them told Indian Express that she heard that the Modi government is giving the cash incentives for girls aged 18 to 25 for their studies. Another said that a neighbour told her after seeing the news on the internet. And they all got the form from a photocopy shop where it was being sold at anywhere between Rs 6 and Rs 20, as the applicants revealed.
District administration sources claim that they have shut shutters of many such shops and others have been warned for such practices. The DM has reassured that strict action will be taken against any of such shops if more cases of fake government forms come to the fore.
On April 6, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Krishna Raj raised this issue in the Rajya Sabha and called for a CBI probe into the case. The issue was raised after similar fake forms were found doing the rounds in states like Haryana, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Delhi and West Bengal.
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