Unverified Scheme Message at the Block Office
You are the office attendant at a Block Development Office in Bihar. On a Monday at 9:40 a.m. the Block Development Officer, who is leaving for a meeting and will not return before 3 p.m., tells you to put up a notice on the staff board about the new pension rule. You have seen no circular. A colleague forwards a WhatsApp message with three claims: (i) every pension beneficiary must submit an Aadhaar-linked passbook copy by the 15th or the pension will stop; (ii) the 19th PM-KISAN instalment was released on 14 June; (iii) free laptops are being given to all Class 9 students who apply through a link. The message carries no date, no office name and ends with the line forward to ten groups. Two pensioners are already waiting at the counter, one of them visibly distressed, and four clerks are pressing you to print the message and paste it on the board at once.
1. It is 9:40 a.m. and the BDO is gone until 3 p.m. Set out, in order, what you will do in the next hour and what you will refuse to do.
Read the worked answer
Refuse first: I will not print or paste anything on the board. A notice board is an official communication; once it is pasted, staff and visitors treat it as an office order, and it cannot be un-pasted.
Order of work:
- Attend to the two people present. They are anxious and physically at the counter, so they come before any paperwork. Tell them plainly that no such circular has reached this office.
- Record it. Enter the message in the dak register with date, time received, sender's name and the exact three claims. A written record protects you if the matter is raised later.
- Check the official channel. Ask the pension/NSAP desk clerk whether any circular or letter exists, and look in the circular register. The office file, not the phone, is the authority.
- Draft, do not display. Prepare a short note listing what was received and what was done, and keep a possible notice in draft form only, for the BDO's signature.
- Leave a note on the BDO's table with the three claims and the time, so the decision is taken by the officer who is accountable for it.
Reasoning: An attendant's duty is to route information and keep decisions reversible, not to authorise content. Drafting keeps the work moving; pasting would convert an anonymous forward into an official act.
2. Rank the three WhatsApp claims by risk and state the minimum evidence you would accept before any of them goes on the notice board.
Read the worked answer
Ranking by harm if wrong:
- Pension/Aadhaar passbook claim - highest risk. It involves money and a poor, elderly audience, and it uses the pressure pattern that misinformation and fraud share: a short deadline, a document requirement, and a threat that a benefit will stop. Minimum evidence: a numbered circular from the department or treasury, with issuing office, date and signature, or written confirmation from the pension desk. No circular, no notice.
- PM-KISAN instalment claim - medium risk, easily checked. It is a plain factual claim about an instalment number and a date. Minimum evidence: the scheme portal or an official press release showing that instalment and date. If the portal shows a lower instalment as the current one, the claim is discarded outright.
- Free laptop link claim - treat as fraudulent by default. No genuine scheme delivers benefits through an unknown link or a forward chain, and the forward-to-ten-groups instruction is itself a warning sign. Minimum evidence: none acceptable for circulation. Report it on the cybercrime portal or helpline 1930.
Reasoning: The test is not whether a claim sounds plausible but what happens if it is wrong and how cheaply it can be checked. Circulating claim (iii) would make the office a party to a fraud, and claim (i) could push pensioners into unnecessary travel and expense.
3. The pensioner at the counter asks: So do I bring the passbook copy tomorrow? Write your reply in two or three sentences, and explain why you chose that wording.
Read the worked answer
Reply: No order of this kind has reached our office, so please do not travel or pay anyone on the basis of a forwarded message. Keep your passbook and Aadhaar ready at home, and I will confirm the position from the pension clerk and tell you in writing before you need to come again.
Why this wording:
- It states only what is certainly true - that no order has arrived here - instead of declaring that no such rule exists anywhere, which I cannot know.
- It gives the person something to do and a definite next step, which reduces fear more than reassurance does.
- It avoids two opposite errors: a false comfort that the rule will never apply, and a false warning that would make an elderly person queue up for nothing.
- It moves the matter to a verifiable channel and puts the commitment in writing, so the answer does not depend on memory or on who is sitting at the counter.