BJP MLA Rudranil Ghosh has leveled explosive allegations of widespread financial corruption within West Bengal’s cultural welfare sector, claiming a massive ₹1,200 crore scam in the distribution of monthly state doles to traditional kirtan singers. Addressing the state assembly, the legislator demanded an immediate high-level investigation into the cash distribution system, comparing the alleged siphoning of cultural funds to regional irregularities previously witnessed in central housing welfare schemes. The political revelation has ignited an intense debate regarding structural transparency and the vetting of public fund beneficiaries across the state’s traditional artist networks.
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Allegations of Massive Pension Siphoning in the Assembly
The core of the alleged fraud targets a state-backed welfare initiative launched in 2016, which originally provided a monthly pension of ₹1,000 to devotional artists before expanding into a broader financial support system. Ghosh asserted that while there are approximately five lakh registered kirtan singers documented across official state registries, as many as 2.5 lakh individuals are completely fraudulent beneficiaries. He alleged that these unverified recipients were political cadres masquerading as folk performers to draw public cash allowances while explicitly singing praises of the previous administration and its top leadership.
The financial footprint of the operation has accumulated significantly over the last decade due to the prolonged duration of the payouts. Ghosh stated that because the unchecked distribution scheme operated continuously from 2016 to 2026, the aggregate public capital siphoned by these fake kirtan singers stands at a staggering ₹1,200 crore. He emphasized that massive amounts of state money intended for marginalized folk musicians have effectively gone down the drain through fake documentation and insider political collusion.
Systemic Marginalization of Authentic Folk Artists
The legislator further detailed how the calculated manipulation of cultural funding directly devastated West Bengal’s genuine folk art ecosystem. Ghosh highlighted a conscious institutional effort by specific powerful syndicates to position mainstream commercial entertainment as the sole representative of Bengali culture, effectively pushing traditional grassroots artists into deep financial obscurity. He noted that over 50% of the distributed doles were diverted to fake profiles, leaving authentic, generational singers to battle extreme poverty without any state-sponsored buffer.
While acknowledging that the current administration heavily supports the structural development of regional culture, Ghosh warned that executive bodies must enforce rigorous, double-blind audit protocols before executing future resource allocations. He argued that without strict regulatory screening and mandatory physical verification checkpoints, public funds will continue to be intercepted by opportunistic political intermediaries instead of reaching the impoverished master craftsmen and vocalists who preserve the state’s spiritual heritage.
Insider Corroboration and Demands for Clean Registries
The corruption allegations received significant backing from institutional folk bodies, with the All-India Kirtan, Baul and Devotional Singers Welfare Trust formally supporting the demand for a clean registry cleanup. Siddhartha Shankar Naskar, the president of the welfare trust, revealed that the organization had actively raised alarms regarding political infiltration as early as 2015. He disclosed that after the introduction of the initial stipend, numerous political workers weaponized local party offices to secure fake artist certificates, eventually landing lucrative assignments on state-sponsored cultural panels that pushed their taxpayer-funded monthly intake up to ₹4,000 per head.
Naskar stated that the welfare trust had previously submitted comprehensive blueprints to help the government cross-verify applicant portfolios and compile an authentic, clean registry of legitimate performers, but the proposals were deliberately ignored by past administrative managers. Folk leaders have collectively urged the new government to implement immediate systemic corrections, flush out fraudulent cardholders from the treasury pipeline, and redistribute the recovered capital to authentic, struggling folk performers across rural Bengal.
