Express News Service
NEW DELHI: At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi misses no opportunity to attack corruption, alleged embezzlement of funds running into Rs 114.83 crore has reportedly been detected with the scholarship program of the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
According to a media report, around 53% of institutions that availed of the scholarship benefits have been found to be ‘fake’. The disclosure has surfaced across the country after a report, quoting the internal inquiry of the ministry was carried in a monthly magazine.
The report said that embezzlement of funds meant for scholarships for minority youths was suspected to have occurred between 2007 and 2022. The BJP was not in power when the scheme was introduced in 2007-08, but it allegedly continued till 2022.
The media report quoting an internal inquiry of the Ministry of Minority Affairs has stated that the embezzlement was routed to 830 institutions. Union minister Smriti Irani immediately referred the case for further investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation on July 10.
Sources, quoted by a media report said that the inquiry was reportedly conducted in 100 districts in 34 states. As many as 830 out of 1,572 institutions looked into were reportedly found to be involved in it.The accounts of the accused institutions have also reportedly been frozen. The scholarship program in the Ministry of Minority Affairs was started in 2007-08 for the minority students in the country.
The institutions found that non-existent and non-operational bodies availed benefits of the scheme fraudulently. The reports said 62 institutions registered under the Ministry of Minority Affairs were detected as non-operational in Chhattisgarh while in poll-bound Rajasthan 99 institutions were found to be non-operational. In Assam, according to a media report, 68% of institutions were found to be either fake or non-existent.
Such irregularities have been found in other states, including UP and Karnataka too. According to a report, one bank branch in Kerala also disbursed 66,000 scholarships, exceeding the registered number of minority students for scholarships.
As a report further claimed, the alleged irregularities have also been detected in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Amit Malviya, in-charge of BJP’s national information and technology department and a member of the party’s national executive, said on Sunday, “The scholarship schemes, namely Pre-Matric Scholarship, Post-Matric Scholarship, and Merit-Cum-Means were introduced by the erstwhile UPA in the year of 2007-8. Prior to 2014-15, funds were released directly to the state governments/UTs without any mechanism to verify the applications and map the rightful use of funds”.
He also said that in 2014-15, a fundamental change was introduced in disbursal of funds and the scheme was implemented on DBT via existing software based out of Hyderabad. “It was in 2016-17 that the scheme was shifted to the National Scholarship Portal and implemented on DBT developed in Delhi. Thus began the process of digitization of scholarships,” Malviya said.
He said as the digitization progressed, it was observed that INO, DNO and SNO ecosystem carried forward from the UPA era misused their authority and kept compromising on the veracity mechanism established through the NSP.
NEW DELHI: At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi misses no opportunity to attack corruption, alleged embezzlement of funds running into Rs 114.83 crore has reportedly been detected with the scholarship program of the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
According to a media report, around 53% of institutions that availed of the scholarship benefits have been found to be ‘fake’. The disclosure has surfaced across the country after a report, quoting the internal inquiry of the ministry was carried in a monthly magazine.
The report said that embezzlement of funds meant for scholarships for minority youths was suspected to have occurred between 2007 and 2022. The BJP was not in power when the scheme was introduced in 2007-08, but it allegedly continued till 2022.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
The media report quoting an internal inquiry of the Ministry of Minority Affairs has stated that the embezzlement was routed to 830 institutions. Union minister Smriti Irani immediately referred the case for further investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation on July 10.
Sources, quoted by a media report said that the inquiry was reportedly conducted in 100 districts in 34 states. As many as 830 out of 1,572 institutions looked into were reportedly found to be involved in it.
The accounts of the accused institutions have also reportedly been frozen. The scholarship program in the Ministry of Minority Affairs was started in 2007-08 for the minority students in the country.
The institutions found that non-existent and non-operational bodies availed benefits of the scheme fraudulently. The reports said 62 institutions registered under the Ministry of Minority Affairs were detected as non-operational in Chhattisgarh while in poll-bound Rajasthan 99 institutions were found to be non-operational. In Assam, according to a media report, 68% of institutions were found to be either fake or non-existent.
Such irregularities have been found in other states, including UP and Karnataka too. According to a report, one bank branch in Kerala also disbursed 66,000 scholarships, exceeding the registered number of minority students for scholarships.
As a report further claimed, the alleged irregularities have also been detected in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Amit Malviya, in-charge of BJP’s national information and technology department and a member of the party’s national executive, said on Sunday, “The scholarship schemes, namely Pre-Matric Scholarship, Post-Matric Scholarship, and Merit-Cum-Means were introduced by the erstwhile UPA in the year of 2007-8. Prior to 2014-15, funds were released directly to the state governments/UTs without any mechanism to verify the applications and map the rightful use of funds”.
He also said that in 2014-15, a fundamental change was introduced in disbursal of funds and the scheme was implemented on DBT via existing software based out of Hyderabad. “It was in 2016-17 that the scheme was shifted to the National Scholarship Portal and implemented on DBT developed in Delhi. Thus began the process of digitization of scholarships,” Malviya said.
He said as the digitization progressed, it was observed that INO, DNO and SNO ecosystem carried forward from the UPA era misused their authority and kept compromising on the veracity mechanism established through the NSP.
