Updated: November 5, 2020 6:44:27 am
Manu Indian Public School in Banke Bazaar de Gaya has 128 hostel beneficiaries. But it has no shelter. (Express photo: Abhishek Angad)
the Scholarship scam, where money earmarked for poor minority students is diverted, it is not confined to Jharkhand, but has crossed state lines.
Researching the entries, district by district, on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) and comparing them to recipients’ bank accounts in the Public Finance Management System (PFMS), The Indian Express has found several cases of pre-Matric scholarships. illegally diverted by intermediaries. in Bihar too.
In a notable parallel to the scam in Jharkhand, records show that the Manu Indian Public School in Gaya’s Banke Bazaar block has up to 134 beneficiaries, including 128 staying in a hostel, making them eligible for the highest scholarship. of Rs 10,700 per year.
But the Indian Express visited the school and found a partially painted two-story structure in a deserted field – it was closed. About 2 km away, the owner of the school, Rajiv Kumar, reviewed the list of beneficiaries and said that they were all “fake” and that the school had no shelter.
“There are 150 students in the school, but only seven from minority communities. I have never verified any scholarship application. Someone had called last year asking me to fill out the forms for a student scholarship. I did not agree. They have deceived us, ”said Kumar.
About 20 km away, in the village of Binda on the Barachatti Block, The Indian Express tracked down two of these recipients, listed in the records as Class 7 students who received 5,700 rupees each for 2019-20. One of them is Mohammad Arshad Ansari, 20, an apprentice hairdresser at a local salon. The other is her neighbor Shaiyma Parveen, 16, who is a class 10 student at a local government school.
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“I never studied in Manu Indian public school and I don’t know who this scholarship is for. I took class 10 out of a public school two years ago. I received the money this year after a local person filled out the form on my behalf. Some of my neighbors also filled out the forms, but they have not received money, ”said Mohammad Ansari. He claimed that he did not pay money to the intermediary.
Parveen showed her identification card to Indira Kanya Ucha Vidyalaya, a nearby public school. “I received 5,700 rupees this year. A teacher came to our school and wrote down our names. This is how I got the money, ”he said.
PMFS records show that a third village beneficiary, Manuar Ansari, received 10,700 rupees this year. Speaking on his behalf, his father Imteyaz Ansari said: “The intermediary took half the amount. My son works as a tailor and passed Class 10 a few years ago. ”The records do not include the name of the school.
In the Saharsa district, the scholarship records show a recipient of St Mathews SSS in Purhiran. But there is a catch: Purhiran is in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur. The beneficiary identifies himself as Atul Singha, who has shown himself to be a Muslim and son of “Rahman”.
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William Tell, owner of St Mathews SSS in Purhiran, told The Indian Express by phone that the school has no branches outside of Punjab. “I cannot understand how Purhiran figures in Saharsa. Also, there is no student named Atul Singha in our school. We did not fill out any scholarship forms for 2019 or 2020. This is clearly a big scam, “Tell said.
The scholarships are intended for minority students from families with an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh and who scored at least 50 percent on their class exams. Requests must first be verified by designated Node Heads at the schools who are registered with the district wellness officials. These are verified by nodal district and state officials before they are sent to the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs, which verifies and uploads them to the NSP prior to disbursement via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
When contacted by Jitendra Kumar, Minority Welfare Officer, Gaya, she said: “Last year, 52,000 applications came in and we removed several false ones. Only 6,000 were removed from my side. If some cases have escaped scrutiny, it is alarming. “
In Saharsa, Shamshad Khan, the district welfare officer in 2019 when the verification process took place at the local level, declined to comment saying he had retired from service.
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. .
During a month-long investigation in Jharkhand, The Indian Express tracked 15 schools in six districts to find that intermediaries with the help of bank correspondents and, in several cases, school personnel, stole IDs and passwords to access the NSP and mislead students. gullible, and create bogus recipients, to pocket a portion of the scholarship money.
READ | Jharkhand CM orders investigation of scholarship scam: ‘action soon’
The Center had allocated Rs 61 crore to Jharkhand for the scholarship in 2019-20. And the investigation findings, published by The Indian Express in a series of reports over the past four days, prompted the Jharkhand government and the Center to announce investigations.
On Wednesday Rajiv Arun Ekka, Senior Secretary to the Chief Minister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren, wrote a letter to the Secretary of State, Department of Social Welfare, to prepare all files related to the scam for the Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), which will be will take over the investigation.
Meanwhile, the BJP, which was in power in Jharkhand until December last year, claimed that its state government had carried out “various checks in different parts” of the state after the then-chief secretary received a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Union minorities warning of “Repeated attempts to subvert” the NSP.
“The beneficiary schools were reduced from 41,000 to 3,100 last year. The Raghubar Das government acted quickly. The Soren government is playing politics and has done nothing to stop corruption, ”said BJP spokesman Pratul Shahdeo.
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