Secretariat officials among those receiving welfare pension; name and details will not be released, will take strict action, says Minister

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister KN Balagopal said that a strong investigation will be conducted on the officials who committed welfare pension fraud and strict departmental action will be taken against them after the investigation. The minister said that the names and details of the officials who received welfare pensions will not be released. The minister added that a special investigation team has been appointed to find out the ineligible persons who have been included in the welfare pension list.

Investigation revealed that 1458 government employees in service, including college assistant professors, Plus Two teachers, and gazetted officers, are receiving a monthly social security pension of Rs 1600. This shocking discovery was made during an investigation conducted by the Information Kerala Mission by comparing data from the service software handling pension lists and the Spark software used for the salary distribution of government employees. 373 employees in the Health Department and 224 employees in the General Education Department are found to be receiving welfare pensions. There are about forty departments with a team of less than 10 officers who are embezzling pensions. Secretariat officials are also involved in this.