Scholarship scam: ED raids office of RBPSGM in Wardha

 

 

 

Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Thursday, conducted searches at Wardha office of Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti Gyan Mandal (RBPSGM) in connection with multi-crore scholarship scam that rocked the education sector of State. The searches were conducted by a team of ED officials after unearthing irregularities by office-bearers of the organisation. The Gyan Mandal was formed after a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between one Umesh Borkhede and Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti, said the sources. As per the guidelines of UGC and the MoU, Gyan Mandal had no power to give franchise to any private party. However, office-bearers of the Gyan Mandal sanctioned franchises to more than 250 persons across the State. “They were running distance learning programme which was not approved by the UGC.

 

The franchisee showed full strength of students by submitting forged documents of SC and ST students for which Government provides full grants. On count of students the franchisee siphoned off crores of rupees of scholarship between year 2012 and 2016, sources further claimed. During investigation, ED learnt that the fraud was committed by the office-bearers of the Gyan Mandal allegedly in connivance with few officials of State Government. The ED had registered Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in scholarship scam during the year after preliminary inquiry revealed lot of irregularities. During the searches apart from going through the record of organisation, the ED team also took away voluminous record for further investigations, said the sources.

 

 

Central Government and Maharashtra Police are close to blowing lid off a massive scam in the State’s education sector. The police had already conducted a mammoth probe across the State, with the help of 64 Government auditors who looked into allegations of misappropriation of funds amounting over Rs 222 crore disbursed under the Centre’s post-matric scholarship scheme. The scheme announced in June 2006 was aimed at helping poor students from minority and tribal communities, Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Vimukta Jatis (Denotified Tribes), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Special Backward Classes (SBCs) to pursue their post-matriculation education. While students from SC, Vimukta Jati, OBC and SBC categories are given funds under the scheme by the social welfare department, the tribal welfare department takes care of STs.

 

 

The funds are routed through Social Justice and Special Assistance, Tribal Welfare, Higher and Technical Education and Medical Education Departments. These four departments then allocate the funds to colleges as per the students strength in respective courses. The web of the suspected scam began to unravel after more than nine cases were registered by the Gadchiroli police, and Assistant Commissioners of the Social Welfare Department and Project Officers of the Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) were arrested for misappropriation of funds meant for the scheme in year 2015. The police investigations had led to startling revelations that officials of Social Welfare and ITDP officers had cheated State Government of Rs 3.39 crore and Rs 13 crore, respectively, in Gadchiroli alone. Fearing that a bigger scam could be playing out across the state, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had ordered a high-level probe into the fund allocations. A special investigating team (SIT) headed by the then Additional Director General of Police (Training) K Venkatesham was formed in year 2016 for investigation of the scam. The Maharashtra Police also took the help of 64 local fund auditors attached to Konkan Bhavan in Belapur to nail the scamsters. This team of auditors had assessed the numbers of scholarships approved in each district and the names of officers involved in any suspected embezzlement. Each district has a separate social welfare and tribal welfare department. A final report was submitted to State Government but no action was taken so far.