Illegalities galore in 'Anna Bhagya' scheme: NGO

Future India, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has said that the ‘Anna Bhagya’ scheme, aimed at providing free foodgrains to the poor, was not reaching the beneficiaries.

Speaking to media persons, Roland Soans, president of Future India, said that they conducted regular raids to check misuse of government schemes.

Operation 409

“We started ‘Operation 409’ two months ago to check the illegalities in the Anna Bhagya scheme. Based on complaints from citizens, we conducted a raid on October 5 at one of the public distribution system (PDS) centres at Singasandra near Electronics City. We recovered 400 undistributed coupons and 40 ration cards there. The Parappana Agrahara police did not take our complaint,” Soans said.

He said that they had unearthed similar scams at Wilson Garden, Sudhamanagar and other areas, earlier.

The fair price shops and food coupon distributors were colluding with each other in the Anna Bhagya scams, Soans said.

“We get complaints from the public that they do not get coupons and that the PDS centres are not issuing ration cards. This can land the miscreants in jail,” members of the NGO said.

The members plan to meet Minister for Food and Public Distribution U T Khader to bring the matter to his notice.