Kendrapara, July 13: Police today arrested a ration cardholder, who had managed to get his name enrolled in the list of beneficiaries by furnishing false information.

The district administration also recovered Rs 3.26 lakh from 76 ineligible beneficiaries, who had collected food items using their ration cards.

Official sources said 205 persons were in the dock for fraudulently enrolling their names in the list of digitalised ration cardholders after a probe found them ineligible for subsidised food grains under the public distribution system. These beneficiaries did not merit consideration for the social security scheme, according to the probe. However, they were found to have suppressed information to make the list.

The district administration has initiated legal action against them. Officials said they would initiate coercive legal action against those who had not refunded the market price of ration that they had withdrawn. The accused availed of the benefits although they were not entitled to it under the central act. The cops have registered cases against them.

District collector Debraj Senapati said they would initiate criminal action against the ineligible beneficiaries in a phased manner. "We are preparing a fresh list of fake beneficiaries to take legal action against them," he said.

He said the ration commodities that they had obtained would be realised from them at market price of the commodities with 10 per cent interest.

"The verification process is still on. We will lodge FIRs against the perpetrators who applied for and obtained the cards against the existing guidelines. We had earlier served a notice asking the ineligible cardholders to return their NFSA cards according to directives issued by the state government," said Senapati. "No genuine beneficiary will be left out and ineligible beneficiaries will be removed from the list."

He said officials involved in finalising the list of beneficiaries would be held accountable for any mistake. Criminal cases would also be lodged against those who fail to strike off ineligible beneficiaries from the list.

"The BJD has made a mockery of the food security act. Affluent people owing allegiance to the party colluded with officials of the district administration to sneak their way into the list of beneficiaries at the cost of thousands of poor people," said Congress leader Ganeswar Behera.