Ranchi: Accountant General of Jharkhand Anup Francis Dungdung revealed a scam of Crores of Rupees of Jharkhand Government. He said in the name of scholarship in Jharkhand, fake scholarships worth Rs 1 crore were distributed in six districts.
This fake distribution was also done from institutions that had neither registered themselves on the National Scholarship Portal nor obtained user certificates or credentials to log in to the portal. Thus, user credentials and credentials were misused for sanction of scholarship by fake persons with direct and indirect involvement of application verifying authorities.
The AG said that a district level government committee formed in Dhanbad district to investigate the minority scholarship fraud, in its investigation report found fake disbursement of an amount of Rs 9.99 crore in fake approval of applications. The officers who verified the applications played a role in this.
The impact of DBT in Social Security Pension Scheme and Scholarship Schemes, data was collected for audit in six selected districts Chatra, Hazaribagh, East Singhbhum, Godda, Palamu and Ranchi. Its objective was to obtain data of beneficiaries and find out the management of DBT. In this, Rs 5.20 lakh has been fraudulently distributed as scholarship to 81 fake beneficiaries. These beneficiaries are from five districts. Rs 22.79 lakh was distributed as reimbursement of scholarship to 365 ineligible students.
Scholarships were also given to pass out students in Jharkhand. In lieu of this, Rs 5.74 lakh was paid. Deficiency was found in e-Kalyan Scheme Management Software in payment of scholarship. Without checking the documents, Rs 43.77 lakh was fraudulently distributed to 663 beneficiaries. AG said that the complete database of beneficiaries for the pension scheme is not ready. The department also does not have complete data of the beneficiaries.
To investigate this, 29 percent samples were taken, in which officers delayed giving pension by 864 days. Social audit from 2017 to 2021 was not conducted in this scheme. The AG has said that the state government should make pension payments on time.
On the Minority Scholarship Scheme, he said that the state government can take action against the officials. There has also been talk of conducting an IT audit of e-Kalyan, so that the shortcomings can be removed. The e-applications of the Government of India should be transferred to the NESP portal.