‘Weeding out face SC/ST beneficiaries at war footing’: Bengal Tribal Development Minister Kshudiram Tudu

The Bharatiya Janata Party had long alleged that the Trinamool dispensation had handed out fake Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe certificates to thousands of individuals, in lieu of money. Two months into their tenure, the state government has a massive task at hand – to weed out those fake beneficiaries from its system. In an exclusive conversation with The Statesman, West Bengal Tribal Development Minister Kshudiram Tudu said that the identification process has already started at a war footing, and even those government officials involved in this scam are being identified.

“The identification process is already underway; our office conducts verification, essentially twice a month, to identify these cases. Those availing themselves of government benefits using fake ST certificates must be removed from the system, and the role of the officials involved in this forgery must also be examined,” the Ranibandh MLA, who also holds charge of the Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education told The Statesman.

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Ranibandh is a reserved constituency for Scheduled Tribes in the Bankura district of West Bengal.

The Minister informed that a “comprehensive screening and weeding-out process” is being carried out across all the subdivisions and blocks in the state.

Giving some specifics into the fraud that was allegedly ongoing during the TMC regime, Tudu shared, “There are some non-specific surnames—such as Prasad, Roy, Mondal, Mohammad Ali, or Kumar—that could belong to anyone, not just tribals.”

The Tribal Development Minister also hit out at the previous regime claiming that the forgery was most rampant during the Duare Sarkar initiative, the TMC government’s door-to-door service delivery programme.
“Upon assuming responsibility for this department, I considered it a priority to investigate these cases and cancel the fraudulent certificates,” he assured.