Praja Palana committee urges people not to share any OTPs

Referring to reports appearing in a section of media and social media platforms, IT Minister D Sridhar Babu stressed that no bank details and no OTP was asked by officials from applicants during the Praja Palana programme.  

Hyderabad: Stating that there was no connection with the One Time Password (OTP) sought by cyber criminals with applications collected during the Praja Palana programme, the Cabinet Sub Committee on Praja Palana appealed to the people not to share any OTPs if they got any fraud calls and to report the matter to police. The Committee also said that unable to stomach the response for the programme, attempts were being made by some people to politicize the issue with malicious intentions.

The Cabinet Sub Committee on Praja Palana held its first meeting under the chairmanship of Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu at the Secretariat here on Friday. IT Minister D Sridhar Babu and other senior officials also participated in the meeting.The Deputy Chief Minister directed officials to complete the application data entry process within the stipulated time, besides formulating an action plan for taking up physical verification before the next meeting.

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He also instructed the officials to design some exercise in their respective departments for taking up the field verification. As many as 1.05 crore applications were received for the five guarantees, while another 19.93 lakh applications were received under other categories as part of the programme, he said.

Sridhar Babu underscored the need to identify the genuine beneficiary without any scope for overlapping as a means to ensure that the eligible persons received the benefits. Referring to reports appearing in a section of media and social media platforms, he stressed that no bank details and no OTP was asked by officials from applicants during the Praja Palana programme.

He also mentioned that even during the process of data entry no phone number was asked from the beneficiary.

“It is a deliberate attempt by certain vested interests to misguide and confuse the people,” Sridhar Babu said.

The Ministers directed that CGG, IT and all other departments to share data collectively and prepare clean data without duplication of data.The Committee Members also discussed modalities for implementation of five guarantees, besides how to integrate the details submitted by the applicants with the data available in different departments.

Timelines for completion of data entry along with data analytics and measures to avoid duplication were also discussed. Special Chief Secretary (Finance) K Ramakrishna Rao and other senior officials participated in the meeting.