Now a Bihar farmer turns millionaire overnight, asks govt if he could keep some of the money

The Bihar farmer got to know that crores of rupees has been credited to his account when he approached a nearby Customer Service Point to seek an update on the status of his pension.

A farmer in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district has erroneously received ₹52 crore in his pension account and he has appealed to the government to allow him to keep some of the money. Ram Bahadur Shah, who lives in a village under the Katihar police station, got to know that crores of rupees has been credited to his account when he approached a nearby Customer Service Point (CSP) to seek an update on the status of his pension. “We were shocked to hear this and wondered where the amount had come from. We have spent our lives farming,” Shah said, according to India Today. “I only appeal to the government to give us some of this amount so that we can spend the rest of our lives smoothly.”

The Bihar farmer got the money in his pension account.  (Shutterstock Photo)

According to reports, the police have already informed local authorities about the incident and are investigating the matter. Employees of the concerned bank will also be questioned, they added.

This comes days after two boys received ₹962 crore in their bank accounts, which were opened to receive school scholarships and other government benefits in the state’s Katihar district. The Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank (UBGB) accounts of Ashish Kumar and Guruchand Vishwas showed they had a balance of Rs 62 crore and ₹900 crore respectively. They got to know about their balance after the outgoing village head of Pastia took some of the students to the local customers’ service point to check whether their accounts were credited with money for books and school dress.

On Thursday, the regional manager of UBGB, Ram Nath Mishra, dismissed the reports. “We have obtained the statement of these two accounts and found ₹100 and ₹128 in them,” Mishra said. The bank has also initiated an investigation into the matter.

A few days ago, a man in Khagaria district was arrested after he refused to return ₹5.50 lakh credited in his UBGB account in April last year. He claimed the money was sent to him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as help during the Covid-19 lockdown. He was arrested after bank officials lodged a police complaint against him.