Updated: November 6, 2020 7:20:41 am
Manu Indian Public School in Banke Bazaar de Gaya has 128 hostel beneficiaries. But it has no shelter. (Express photo: Abhishek Angad)
From Ranchi in Jharkhand to Saharsa in Bihar to Nazira in Assam, the scholarship scam it stretches far and wide.
Data from the National Scholarship Portal (NSP), for the Center’s pre-enrollment scholarships for Poor Minority Students, shows that Kendriya Vidyalaya Nazira is listed in six districts of Bihar. It’s actually just a school, and it’s located in the Sivasagar district of Assam.
The Indian Express investigated the entries in the NSP and compared them, one by one, with bank accounts in the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) to find at least 39 beneficiaries under the name of this school in Bihar.
They are all false, the school’s principal, Akhileshwar Jha, told The Indian Express by phone. Nazira is known primarily as an ONGC outpost.
An investigation by The Indian Express has found several cases where the scholarship was illegally diverted by intermediaries in Bihar. The newspaper also tracked 15 schools in six districts of Jharkhand to find that the intermediaries, with the help of bank correspondents and school personnel, stole IDs and passwords to access the NSP and mislead students, and created false beneficiaries to pocket a share of scholarship. money.
For Kendriya Vidyalaya Nazira, the 2019-20 records show beneficiaries in Darbhanga (14), Muzaffarpur (13), Madhubani (7), Purnea (2), Bhagalpur (2) and East Champaran (1).
But the school principal is clear about it. “Our teachers have reviewed this list and these names cannot be found in our registry. We will raise this to the highest level. We did not verify any of these scholarship forms last year, ”said Jha.
During this year’s verification process as well, Jha said, the school received an email from the Assam District Social Welfare Officer. “Many applicants registered as our students for 2020-21. When we checked, they weren’t our students, even though the entries mentioned our school and the contact person listed was our computer science teacher. This needs to be investigated, ”Jha said.
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The school’s scholarship records show that a Class 8 recipient and resident of Muzaffarpur, Hasina Begum, received Rs 10,700. According to the records of the Bihar Department of Social Welfare, which is the verification authority in this case, Begum’s address is “Kurhani, Muzaffarpur” and the pin code 834551; this pin code does not exist; Kurhani’s code is 844120.
Officials in Bihar said interstate applications are rare at the pre-enrollment stage, as they are mostly made by students leaving their homes to study in another state. In such cases, they said, verification is done by the district’s minority welfare officer in the applicant’s home state.
“But in the case of this Kendriya Vidyalaya, if the principal says that those on the list are not his students, it is very alarming,” said Rizwan Ahmad, District Minority Welfare Officer, Darbhanga.
“This year, I turned down many applications that included the school like KV Nazira. The forms claimed that the applicants were Darbhanga residents, but the entries were blurred. The copies of the bank books also did not have a substantial balance or record. Only the IFSC code was visible. In a notebook, I zoomed in to check the address and it was North Dinajpur in West Bengal, ”he said.
When asked how KV Nazira’s 14 applications were verified in Darbhanga last year, Ahmad said: “It was not published here then.”
In Muzaffarpur, where 13 KV Nazira students are mentioned as recipients for 2019-20, the district’s minority welfare officer, Ravi Shankar, said: “It is rare that in pre-matriculation scholarship schemes, students apply from a different state. This type of verification generally occurs for post-matrix schemes where students leave the state to continue their studies. “However, he declined to comment on the verification process last year for KV Nazira applicants.
Read | Jharkhand Scholarship Scam: Middleman’s Journal Shows Links: Phone Numbers, Passwords
At the heart of the problem, officials told The Indian Express, is the lack of a clear Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for verifying inter-district or inter-state applications.
“In pre-matriculation applications, when a student fills out a form, say from Maharashtra, and his address is Bhagalpur, the form should be verified by the login ID of the District Welfare Officer of residence, ie Bhagalpur DWO . But how can this DWO verify a student’s application in Maharashtra? “said a minority welfare officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officials said the only way is to verify applications uploaded to the NSP, but the details are often not clearly visible. “In some cases, where the authentic details are visible, the phone numbers will be for different people. In other cases, we can eliminate fake applications by checking the veracity of the IFSC code or the bank’s PIN code, ”said an official.
“In another case, it was discovered that photocopies of the same Aadhaar card were sent for two people; the details were the same, except that the two sides of the card had different numbers. When I went to verification, I found out that the listed school did not exist. Without a clear SOP, the problems will continue, ”said the official.
“We have been aware of the potential for misuse in such cases and new measures will be discussed at a meeting of minority welfare officials on November 12. We will also send suggestions to the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs to fill in the gaps. “Amir said. Subhani, additional chief secretary of the Bihar Department of Minority Welfare, who is also in charge of the housing portfolio.
READ | Jharkhand CM orders investigation of scholarship scam: ‘action soon’
The Center’s Pre-Matriculation Scholarships are intended for minority students from families with an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh and who scored at least 50% on their class exams. Requests must first be verified by designated Node Heads at the schools who are registered with the district wellness officials. They are verified by nodal district and state officials before sending them to the Ministry of Minority Affairs, which verifies them and uploads them to the NSP prior to disbursement via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
According to the plan, launched by the UPA government in 2008, students in classes 1 to 5 receive 1,000 rupees per year, and students in classes 6 to 10 receive 5,700 rupees a year if they are scholarship holders or 10,700 rupees if they are in a hostel. .
For 2019-20, records show, Rs 82.43 crore was disbursed in Bihar under the scheme for 2,45,662 students out of 5,79,887 applications.
The findings of The Indian Express investigation, published in a series of reports over the past five days, prompted the Jharkhand government and the Center to announce investigations. In Bihar, they have been sent to district magistrates for follow-up action.
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