Bhubaneswar: An audit has exposed irregularities worth to the tune of Rs 6.29 crore in the disbursement of marriage assistance and inadequate scrutiny of applications under the state government’s Nirman Shramik Kalyan Yojana (NSKY).
The audit detected nearly 2,000 cases where marriage certificates were registered before the actual date of marriage, but were subsequently used to avail assistance during 2020-25.
Under the scheme, the Odisha Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board (OB&OCWWB) provides Rs 50,000 as marriage assistance to a registered unmarried female beneficiary or for the marriage of two unmarried daughters of a beneficiary, provided they are above 18 years of age. Applicants are required to submit Form-B before the registrar for marriage registration within 30 days of solemnization to avail the assistance.
However, an audit of the financial disbursements pointed to serious discrepancies.
Analysis of the legacy database showed that marriage certificates had been registered before the actual date of marriage in at least 676 cases. In five sampled districts, 126 such cases were detected.
The irregularity continued in the post-go-live phase, with 1,257 cases detected across the state and 333 in the sampled districts. This resulted in the disbursement of around Rs 6.29 crore. In several cases, the registration date on the marriage certificate was much earlier than the actual date of marriage, raising doubts over the authenticity of the certificates.
The audit also found that marriage assistance was approved in several cases without proper verification of the certificates submitted by applicants.
In one case in Khurda district, a worker received Rs 50,000 by submitting a marriage certificate purportedly belonging to his daughter. Verification, however, found that the certificate was fabricated and belonged to someone else, the audit pointed out.
At the block development office in Khariar, marriage certificate issue registers were found to have blank pages and lacked recipients’ signatures. “A total of 586 marriage benefits, amounting to Rs 2.90 crore, were disbursed in Khariar block during 2020-25. The details of the marriage certificates, however, were not available,” the audit observed.
Death Benefits Scam
The audit also flagged several other irregularities in the implementation of the scheme, including the disbursement of death and funeral benefits without death certificates and incorrect data in records relating to death benefit grants.
In 358 instances, death benefits amounting to Rs5.93 crore were disbursed to nominees of deceased workers whose age had exceeded 60 years.
