West Bengal’s welfare schemes could see projected savings of ₹20,000 crore to ₹25,000 crore if lakhs of beneficiaries who could not be traced are removed from government records, according to claims attributed to unnamed state officials quoted by The Telegraph. The report, however, does not include beneficiary-level records, an official notification or an on-record statement from the state government confirming the figures.
The reported exercise began after the change of government in Bengal, when officials attempted to contact beneficiaries of schemes introduced by the previous Trinamool Congress-led administration. The stated purpose was to shift eligible recipients to centrally sponsored programmes, including Ayushman Bharat and Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, as well as to the recently launched West Bengal Mukhyamantri Swasthya Bima Yojana.
According to the report, officials could not trace between 20 lakh and 30 lakh beneficiaries in each of the major schemes examined. A senior official posted at Nabanna was quoted as saying that the state could save between ₹20,000 crore and ₹25,000 crore once all “bogus beneficiaries” were identified. That characterisation remains an allegation in the supplied report and has not been supported by a published audit, departmental order or named official statement.
The largest number cited relates to Swasthya Sathi, West Bengal’s health insurance scheme. The report says 2.45 crore families were registered under the programme and that the state had spent around ₹14,000 crore since its inception in 2017. Annual expenditure was described as approximately ₹2,500 crore in each of the past five years. Officials reportedly said more than 30 lakh beneficiaries could not be traced when attempts were made to move them to other health insurance arrangements.
Swasthya Sathi provides cashless coverage of ₹5 lakh for the family of a cardholder, according to the report. The inability to locate a beneficiary at a recorded address does not, by itself, establish that the person is fictitious or that public funds were improperly claimed. Beneficiary records can also be affected by migration, changes of residence, deaths, duplication, incomplete addresses or administrative data errors. The report says district officials did not classify the untraced beneficiaries as migrant workers, because family members or neighbours would normally be expected to confirm their identity and address in such cases.
The second major programme mentioned is Khadya Sathi, under which foodgrains were distributed to nearly 2 crore people at low or no cost. A senior bureaucrat was quoted as saying that more than 25 lakh beneficiaries could not be traced. The report further stated that the programme involved annual expenditure of about ₹12,000 crore and that inactive ration cards could produce savings if the beneficiaries remained unverified.
Here too, the difference between an untraceable record and an ineligible or fraudulent beneficiary is central. The supplied report does not provide the number of ration cards actually deactivated, the verification method used, the period during which the checks took place or the number of beneficiaries who were later located. Without those details, the reported savings remain a projection rather than a confirmed fiscal outcome.
Krishak Bandhu, the state’s financial assistance scheme for farmers and sharecroppers, is also part of the reported review. The programme was said to cover 1.12 crore farmers and bargadars, although Bengal has a total of 72 lakh farmers. Each beneficiary reportedly received between ₹4,000 and ₹10,000 annually, depending on the size of the farmland. An unnamed official described the gap between the number of farmers and registered beneficiaries as evidence that the beneficiary figure was inflated.
That comparison requires further clarification because the reported beneficiary count includes sharecroppers, while the cited total refers to farmers. The two categories may not be directly comparable. The source material does not provide the number of registered sharecroppers, the land records used for verification, the number of applications rejected or the amount actually disbursed to the allegedly ineligible beneficiaries.
The report also links the welfare verification exercise to 58 lakh absent, shifted, dead and duplicate voters identified during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls conducted before the 2026 Assembly polls. State officials were quoted as saying that the government had not yet determined whether the names of untraceable welfare beneficiaries matched those listed as ASDD voters. The report says that such a match could indicate coordinated misuse of public money, but no matching exercise or result has been disclosed in the supplied material.
This distinction matters for public administration. Electoral-roll verification and welfare-beneficiary verification are separate exercises governed by different records, eligibility rules and institutional responsibilities. A person removed from an electoral roll is not automatically an ineligible welfare recipient, just as an inactive welfare record does not by itself prove electoral fraud. Establishing a connection would require a documented, legally valid data comparison and a clear explanation of how identity, address and eligibility were matched.
The figures cited in the report point to a potentially significant problem in the management of large welfare databases. Swasthya Sathi, Khadya Sathi and Krishak Bandhu operate across health coverage, food distribution and agricultural assistance. Their beneficiary systems may rely on different departments and verification procedures. The reported overlap of untraceable records therefore raises questions about how databases are created, updated, deduplicated and audited across government programmes.
At present, the supplied evidence does not establish whether the reported cases represent duplicate entries, outdated records, deceased beneficiaries, administrative errors, deliberate fraud or people who could not be contacted during a limited verification exercise. It also does not establish whether projected savings would be realised immediately, whether eligible residents could lose access during the process or whether appeals and re-enrolment mechanisms are available.
The reported ₹20,000-crore to ₹25,000-crore estimate should therefore be treated as an official projection attributed to unnamed sources, not as a confirmed saving to the state exchequer. A reliable assessment would require scheme-wise beneficiary counts, verification protocols, records of deletions or suspensions, expenditure data, audit findings and a statement from the departments responsible for each programme.
The key development to monitor is whether the West Bengal government publishes a formal review or places the findings before an audit or legislative forum. Until the state releases supporting records and clarifies the relationship, if any, between welfare databases and the ASDD voter list, the scale of the alleged irregularities and the projected savings remain unverified.
