Thiruvananthapuram; Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac, in the budget presented in the Assembly on Friday, said that the government was determined to weed out ineligible beneficiaries from the social security net. Presently, the inspection of four-wheeler vehicle owners is in progress. Once the inspection was completed, about five to six lakh ineligible people may legitimately be removed from the priority list. With this, the complaints of exclusion from the priority list would be resolved, the budget said. The exclusion of around 6.5 lakh eligible people from the priority list due to flaws in the survey had resulted in widespread discontent. A majority of them were BPL families earlier.
“Another serious issue is that those who were excluded from the priority list get only a small quantity of rice. As a result of the disciplined work for the last few months, we could weed out 2.4 lakh ineligible people including Government servants from the priority list. It is clear that at least one lakh people will be excluded from the existing list based on the inspection of building ownership,” the minister said. With the installation of e-POS machine, ration pilferage could be reduced and a portion of the surplus rice thus saved could be provided additionally to those who were outside the priority list, said the budget.
