Justice Hegde intensifies pace of probe in scams

Lokayukta seems determined to complete investigations before his term gets over

Justice Hegde intensifies pace of probe in scams

Lokayukta seems determined to complete investigations before his term gets over

Before his term as the Lokayukta gets over, Justice Santosh Hegde seems determined to complete probe into several scams and file reports at the earliest.

Black and white: Lakhs of bogus ration card holders applied foru00a0
LPG connections and then sold them in the black. Representation pic

This is giving sleepless nights to the BJP-led state government. The Lokayukta had taken a suo-motu case following reports on distribution of BPL cards to over 30 lakh people, who do not fall under the category.
The cards were distributed ahead of the 2009 Loka Sabha elections apparently to influence the electorate.
A preliminary investigations by a team of Lokayukta sleuths found that around 30 lakh ghost ration cards were in circulation in the state.

At present, there are around 1.6 crore BPL cardholders in the state, while 1.2 crore families are eligible for the same. Even then food and civil supplies minister Shoba Karandlaje admitted that the department has noticed 50 lakh bogus ration cards present across the state.

The BPL card scam has given birth to another scam where bogus ration card holders started applying and getting LPG connections only to sell them in the black market. This adversely affected the genuine LPG consumers as normal supply was badly hit.

The food and civil supplies department had to launch a cleansing drive to weed out illegal connections and direct the distributors to cross-check the details of consumers again. According to sources in the Lokayukta office, the bogus ration card report would expose several government officials and their political bosses.