The Chief Minister’s Relief Fund under the Congress government has been streamlined and made accessible to more beneficiaries and double the amount being released per year when compared to previous regime. One major change made in the procedure to prevent misuse has been to include the beneficiary’s account number on the cheque.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government, which ruled the State for two consecutive terms from 2014 to 2023, released on an average ₹400 crore per year under CMRF, while the Revanth Reddy-led government spent ₹1,530 crore in 21 months, which is nearly ₹760 crore a year, as per the figures available with the Chief Minister’s Office. More importantly, the CMRF fund disbursal has been scam-free so far, while criminal cases of misusing the CMRF fund were registered against those associated with the BRS MLAs.

Two days ago, the Jubilee Hills police of Hyderabad arrested seven persons over misappropriation of CMRF funds. They were identified as fake beneficiaries who secured CMRF cheques fraudulently. There are separate cases registered in different parts of the State over ‘misuse of CMRF cheques’. Investigation is on to ascertain if there was a criminal conspiracy by a single or different gangs.

When Revanth Reddy took over the reigns in December of 2023, the officials were puzzled over the way the CMRF applications were processed by the CMO officials during the BRS regime, and funds were released without following the standard operating procedures. One flaw was that the cheques were issued in the name of the beneficiary. This created a scope for the misuse of the funds. After ‘managing’ to get the CMRF cheque issued, the fraudster would get a bank account opened in that beneficiary’s name without the latter’s knowledge. He would deposit the same in the bank and withdraw the funds.

“We successfully checked this fraud by getting the beneficiary’s bank account number displayed on the CMRF cheque,” said Officer on Special Duty with the CMO Vemula Srinivas.

As part of streamlining the CMRF disbursal, the officials have identified nearly 5,100 hospitals registered with the Director of Medical and Health.

Now, the MLAs and MPs are provided with credentials to log into the CMRF official website. The public representatives have to enter details of the individuals seeking monetary help under the CMRF on the website. Each application is given a token number for all future reference purposes. The application is scrutinised and reviewed before taking a call on the amount to be released.