Forms submitted by people to avail benefits under five guarantees of the new Congress government in Telangana were found to be with private individuals at different places in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
Individuals were seen carrying bundles of filled-in application forms by the applicants with details like Aadhaar number, ration card, mobile number and house address.
Videos of some youth, including students, carrying applications were widely circulated on social media, sparking apprehensions of data theft. Some of them said they were given forms at municipal offices for data entry.
In another incident, filled-in application forms fell out of a carton box being carried by a youth on his two-wheeler and scattered on the road in Balanagar. These about 500 filled-in applications pertained to the Hayathnagar area. Passersby posed various questions to the youth. He told them that someone booked the consignment through a bike taxi and he was only delivering the same.
Opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has slammed the Congress government over private individuals being allowed to handle the applications with vital data. BRS leaders questioned how the government can hand over the filled-in applications to private people. They wondered if the government was serious about implementing the guarantees.
They claimed that the applicants were also receiving calls on their mobile numbers asking them to share the OTP sent to their numbers.
Meanwhile, police have cautioned people against callers asking them to share OTP so that the benefits under the government schemes can be soon made available to them. The state police advised police not to fall for such scams. It clarified that no official will call anyone to share the OTP.
Reacting to this, BRS leader B. Krishank asked if the police were agreeing that 1.11 crore phone numbers of applications are leaked. He alleged that there is a serious data threat.
More than 1.25 crore applications were received during ‘Praja Palana’, the public outreach programme conducted across the state from December 28 to January 6.
More than 1.05 crore of these applications were for availing benefits under five of the six guarantees promised by the Congress party in the recent elections. The remaining applications were for other needs.
A total of 1,11,46,293 households were covered during the programme in 12,769 gram panchayats and 3,623 municipal wards.
Data entry of applications began immediately after the programme concluded. Chief Secretary A. Santhi Kumari has directed district collectors to complete the data entry by January 17.
State Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy has said on Monday that 30,000 data entry operators were engaged in the work.
