Hyderabad: The Central government has given a clean chit to the Telangana State government in the much publicised allegations of Aadhaar fraud in the Kalyan Lakshmi Shaadi Mubarak scheme.
Replying to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Arvind Dharmapuri in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the Telangana State government has reported that there is no rampant Aadhaar fraud in the Kalyan Lakshmi Shaadi Mubarak scheme. He said no investigation was initiated by the central government.
The Union minister said that to ensure security of Aadhar data, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has a well designed, multi layer, robust security system in place which is being constantly upgraded to maintain the highest level of data security and integrity.
He said that various policies and procedures have been defined and are reviewed and updated continually, thereby appropriately controlling and monitoring any movement of people, material and data in and out of UIDAI premises, particularly the Aadhar centres.
He said that the security assurance of Aadhar ecosystem has been strengthened with enactment of the Aadhar Act which has stringent penalties and punishments for offenders.
The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) government introduced the Kalyan Lakshmi Shadi Mubarak scheme in 2014 to provide financial assistance for marriages of the poor. An amount of rRs 1,00,116 is disbursed. There were several allegations that the scheme was misused.
Keeping this in view, BJP’s Nizamabad MP Arvind Dharmapuri asked the Union Minister whether the central government has taken note of the fraud and whether the central government has initiated any investigation in this regard.
