Government employees and luxury car owners were among those found to be possessing BPL cards during a state-wide drive against illegal ration card holders in the last two years.
The Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Department has collected Rs 13 crore in fines during the drive launched in January 2021, including Rs 11 crore from 17,521 government employees alone.
The department has so far identified 4.63 lakh households possessing Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AYY) and Priority Households (PHH) cards despite being ineligible.
Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Commissioner (in-charge) and vigilance & IT additional director Gyanendra Kumar Gangwar told DH that the state government's guidelines say that households owning four-wheelers, government employees, other income tax payers, any member of family working with public sector undertakings (PSUs) or government-aided autonomous bodies and local bodies, families with more than three hectares of land in rural areas and families with more than Rs 1.2 lakh annual income are ineligible for BPL cards.
Government employees were identified using the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) database and details were verified with Aadhaar details.
In addition, the department worked with the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) to identify PHH card holders owning four-wheelers. Surprisingly, 12,012 luxury car owners were found to possess PHH cards, he added.
"The department issued notices to ineligible card holders asking them to either return or convert cards after paying a penalty," he said.
Gangwar said the penalty is being collected on the basis of violators' ability to pay and the extent of violation of guidelines.
Hence, Rs 88 lakh was collected from other income tax payers (excluding government employees), Rs 85 lakh from ineligible cardholders based on complaints and Rs 28 lakh from four-wheeler owners.
The total penalty on 1.21 lakh families having more than three hectares of land is Rs 9,000 and 22,810 families with more than Rs 1.2 lakh annual income is Rs 8,124.
In all, 21,232 government employees were found possessing PHH cards illegally of whom 17,521 have been fined and the rest will be fined soon. The department has taken stern action against them as they have violated government rules, he added.
Imposition of penalties, monetary recoveries equivalent to the ration received and cancellations or changing category of cards to Non-Priority Household (NPHH) category or APL category is being done for fraudulent card holders.
"Of the 4.63 lakh ineligible card holders, 3.33 lakh cards have been upgraded to APL following the eligibility criteria. The department will conduct regular drives to prevent misuse of ration cards," said Gangwar.