Fake med council stayed afloat for over a decade

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 17

More than 6,000 fake degrees, each sold for anywhere between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh. That was the “business” the Council of Paramedical, Punjab, a fake body being run in Mohali’s Phase VII, did in just one course. It is turning out to be a fraud worth hundreds of crores.

The council, that offered degrees/diplomas in 41 courses, managed to evade action for 10 years.

As per eight registers confiscated by Punjab’s Board of Ayurvedic and Unani Systems of Medicine (BAUSM), a government body with which all ayurvedic doctors are registered, the fake council issued 6,136 BAMS degrees. 

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Sanjeev Goyal, Registrar, BAUSM, said: “The fraudsters charged about Rs 1 lakh for diploma and Rs 2 lakh for a degree certificate, as alleged by the complainants. As per conservative estimates, the BAMS fraud comes to Rs 60 crore.”

The BAUSM had conducted a surprise check on the council after it received queries from various government departments on the authenticity of the degrees/diplomas submitted by job aspirants. A senior health official said there had been numerous instances where job applicants had submitted fake certificates.

Besides the BAMS, the council had been offering courses in nursing, dentistry, veterinary sciences and for lab technicians. It was offering MBBS (biochemic systems) that could be done in just two years. 

The fraud was going on over a decade. Except issuing public notices that the council was not recognised by the Punjab Government, the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) did nothing to stop it from issuing fake certificates.

It was only last year that the DMER sent a detailed report to the state DGP and sought action against the fraudsters. But the police failed to act and the fraud continued for yet another year. It was last month that the state police’s Special Operations Cell, acting on a fresh complaint, conducted a raid at the council’s office in Phase VII, Mohali, and arrested one of the accused.

When contacted, Varinder Pal Singh, Assistant Inspector General of the cell, said the scam was widespread and they were on the trail of the kingpin.