In India’s largest minority scholarship scam, over 53% of beneficiaries of minority scholarships in the country were found to be ‘fake.’ An internal investigation performed by the Ministry of Minority Affairs uncovered widespread corruption in as many as 830 such organisations, resulting in a Rs 144.83 crore fraud during the previous five years. Smriti Irani, Union Minister, has referred the case to the Central Bureau of inquiry (CBI) for further inquiry.
According to India Today, the Ministry of Minority Affairs filed an official complaint in the matter on July 10. The study spanned 100 districts across 34 states. 830 of the 1572 institutions investigated were determined to be engaged in fraudulent activity. The data comes from 21 of the 34 states, with examinations into the institutions in the remaining states still ongoing.
For the time being, the authorities have ordered the freezing of accounts associated with these 830 institutions.
The Ministry’s scholarship programme includes around 1,80,000 institutions and students from kindergarten through higher education. The effort began in the 2007-2008 academic year. Scholarships meant for minority students were claimed by these institutions every year using fake beneficiaries for the programme.
The CBI will look into the nodal officers of these institutions who submitted approval reports, the district nodal officers who validated the phoney cases, and how several states permitted this scam to continue for so long. According to sources, the government has also questioned how banks allowed beneficiaries to register fraudulent accounts with fake Aadhar cards and KYC paperwork.
According to sources, despite being non-existent or non-operational, many of the institutions investigated were able to register on both the National Scholarship Portal and the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE).
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