Govt to review process of selecting BPL beneficiaries: Karunanidhi

Chennai, July 24 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today announced in the State Assembly that the Government would review the entire process of selecting beneficiaries, belonging to Below the Poverty line (BPL) group, for centrally-sponsored schemes.

Intervening in the discussion on the state budget for 2006-2007, he said it had been brought to his notice with evidence that crores of money allocated for the schemes beneficial to people below BPL had been deliberately and wrongfully diverted.

Stating that the yardstick for selection of beneficiaries should be correctly adopted, he said the Government would do away with the present system of selecting BPL beneficiaries and go for a review.

Earlier, participating in the debate, Peter Alphonse (Congress) said there were severe irregularities in the selection of beneficiaries for the centrally-funded ''Indra Awas Yojana.'' Stating that the lists of beneficiaries selected under the Central scheme had not been properly maintained during the previous AIADMK regime, he said in a village under the Sengottai Panchayat Union in Tirunelveli district, only four out of 166 families, belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes, had been selected.

In another village, only seven out of 420 SC/ST families had been identified as belonging to BPL group, he added.

Mr Alphonse also appealed to the Government to take steps for making Tamil Nadu the destination for investors.

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