Scholarship scam: Probe leaves over 1 lakh students in a lurch

SHIMLA : The ongoing investigation in the alleged multi-crore scholarship disbursal scam, which was unearthed in Himachal Pradesh in April, has left in lurch over 1 lakh state students owing to delayed issuance of scholarship.

The disbursal of scholarship for the session 2017-18 remains pending on account of state government’s direction to the educational institutes to create a digital mechanism to disburse the scholarship to avoid malpractices and until the set-up, the disbursement remains blocked. “After creating the system, the institutes need to inform the centre as well as state government, only then the scholarship would be disbursed,” an education department official said.

While the directorate of higher education, in a reply to the letter written by one of student association, blamed the centre for delaying in disbursing the scholarship funds, education secretary Arun Sharma negated the accusations and said, “Centre has not withheld scholarships. The education department held a meeting with officials and directed them to speed up the process for disbursing scholarships. Scholarships for 2017- 2018 will be released as per the guideline.”

The scam was unearthed following reports that the students of government schools in the tribal Spiti valley in Lahaul and Spiti district had not been paid scholarship.

The inquiry conducted by the education department had revealed that over 2.38 lakh eligible students hailing from ST and SC categories were deprived of scholarships under various centrally sponsored schemes while ineligible candidates were given admissions and fictitious bank accounts were opened for the payment of scholarships buy various institutions.

Scholarships amounting to ₹226 crore were disbursed through fake admissions and money was deposited in different bank accounts both within and outside the state. Some fake accounts in Haryana, Chandigarh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were tracked.