The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case of scam in minority scholarships in which 830 allegedly fake institutions received funds from the government, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.
The alleged scam has caused a loss of Rs 144 crore to the Ministry of Minority Affairs between financial years 2017-’18 and 2021-’22, according to the first information report.
More than 700 of the 830 institutions accused of duping the government are from five states. Assam (225 such institutes) tops the list followed by Karnataka (162) and Uttar Pradesh (154). These institutes were registered on the National Scholarship Portal and found to be “either non-operational or fake, or partial fake”, the FIR stated, according to The Indian Express.
The case has been registered on a complaint lodged by minority affairs ministry which had asked the National Council of Applied Economic Research to conduct an evaluation following reports about embezzlement of funds under the scholarship schemes, The Hindu reported.
The case has been filed against unknown officials of the alleged fake institutes and public sector banks as well as nodal officers at the district and state-level officers. They have been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
How was the scam carried out?
The alleged embezzlement was carried out by three types of scamsters: fake beneficiaries enrolled under fake institutes, fake beneficiaries enrolled under genuine institutes and partially fake beneficiaries from genuine institutes, The Hindu reported.
Citing a specific case, the FIR stated that at a primary government school in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh, several “fake students” were getting scholarships under a post-matric scheme. In Bihar, the nodal officers registered in the government’s records were in fact cyber cafe owners, who likely made fake applications.
In certain schools in Madhya Pradesh, scholarship applications had been filed for higher classes even as they had classes running only till standard 8, the FIR alleged. Some of the other schools did not even have any students from the minority communities.
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