A major scholarship scam came to light in Jharkhand after a number of private schools lodged complaints at police stations on Sunday stating that fake entries of minority students were done to syphon-off huge funds issued by the central government under Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for the fiscal year 2019-2020.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who is campaigning in Dumka for his party for assembly by-poll, on Sunday said that the matter will be investigated thoroughly.
“This is a matter of grave concern. Coincidently, Louise Marandi who is contesting election in Dumka was minister of welfare department when the scam took place. The matter will be investigated,” Soren said.
Mahendra Kumar Verma, director of Blue Bells School in Ramgarh lodged a complaint at Gola police station.
“I was told that a pre-matric scholarship has been issued to as many as 180 students of my school. I checked the National Scholarship Portal and found this to be true. I checked the particulars of these students but they are not students of school. This is nothing but a scam that the name and credential of my school has been misused. Blue Bells is a sixth grader school having a total 204 students. Number of minority students is not more than 30 in my school,” said Verma.The Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme is a centrally sponsored scheme meant to extend financial support to students of minority communities – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Buddhists. While the annual income of the family must be below Rs 1 lakh the concerned student must have scored at least 50 per cent marks in his/her class exams. Under the scheme selected students from class one to five get Rs 1,000 annually.
Students of class six to 10 get Rs 10,700 if beneficiaries stay in the hostel. In case the student is a day scholar he or she will be entitled to get Rs 5,700 annually.
To get scholarship eligible students will have to apply at National Scholarship Portal (NSP) along with educational documents, bank account details, Aadhaar number and others. Once selected, cash is directly transferred to the account of beneficiaries.
Dhanbad-based Praveen Dubey, general secretary of Jharkhand Niji Vidyalaya Sangathan said that many members of the outfit have complained that the scholarship scam has been perpetrated by using the name of their school.
“We are shocked by how mafias are committing scam. We have requested Dhanbad police to lodge an FIR. We have sent an e-mail to chief minister Hemant Soren, prime minister Narendra Modi, and others to look into this matter. On Monday we are going to visit CBI in Dhanbad also. The scholarship amount may look small but you don’t know how deeply rooted this scam is,” said Dubey.
Dubey’s fear is not unfounded since as per the portal in Ramgarh 6405 students from 100 different schools have been shown among selected students for scholarship.
Ghanshyam Sao, principal and director of Barwadda (Dhanbad) based St. Xavier’s School said that he had initiated the process for the application of six minority students of his school.
All such schools where students are set to apply for scholarship; an ID and password is generated for the said school so that school authority can verify the authenticity of the applicant. The ID is linked to a mobile phone for OTP verification.
“Mysteriously, the registered mobile phone of the ID of my school was changed without any request from the school. In fact, my students had not applied so far but I found that over 300 students of my school have been registered as applicants. I raised a strong objection before the officials of the district welfare department. This kind of scam is happening from the last many years,” said Sao. Aziz Ansari a native of Bijupara said that scholarship was fraudulently withdrawn on the name of her daughter Muskan.