Senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to initiate a CBI probe into the scam in the allotment of scholarships by the Odisha Knowledge Corporation limited (OKCl). The scholarships are given by the State Higher Education Department.
In a letter to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, Gamang said the State Higher Education Department had started ‘Medhabruti’ (merit scholarship) scheme for giving financial assistance to the students of the State giving impression to the people of that the scheme is being sponsored by the State Government, which is not at all true.
He said the scholarship scheme is partly or completely funded by the Centre through “Central Scheme of Scholarship for College and University Students” under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). The Centre provides scholarships to students through the ministries of Tribal Affairs, Social Justice and Empowerment, Minority Affairs, labour and Employment, Home, Department of School Education and literacy, Department of Higher Education and Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.
“But the manner in which the State Government has handled MHRD schemes raises a lot of questions on how other scholarship schemes of the above mentioned organisations are being handled. Nobody knows if it has engaged some private company like OKCl to distribute the funds. So this matter needs to be investigated,” Gamang pointed out.
He said while going through the National Scholarship portal, he found out that a good number of educational institutes of Odisha are registered with all the departments under this portal. These institutes are approved by the Centre or various departments to facilitate the students of these institutes to avail scholarship under various suitable schemes.
“The question is how the State Government can entrust a private company to operate public money. It clearly suggests that a part of the money or whole money is being siphoned off by vested interest people with the help of OKCl by giving false data. The Higher Education Department is being run by the OKCl and the magnitude of the scam is increasing by the day with fresh revelations,” he claimed.
Citing another instance, Gamang said it has come to his knowledge that out of around 2,500 students selected for the scholarship scheme under ‘Medhabruti’, money could not be transferred to around 1,500 students due to their failure in giving bank account details.
“With such a huge number of bank transactions getting rejected, it creates a lot of doubt and suspicion. As these students are doing their graduation and post graduation across various streams, it is not easy to believe that these students do not even know how to fill up the forms. There is no explanation on where this money is kept or used,” the BJP leader said in his letter.