2 months on, no headway in scholarship scam

Deepkamal Kaur

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, MAY 16

Ever since the alleged Rs 18 crore scam over dropout and duplicate students polytechnic college and ITI students trying to take undue benefit of SC Post Matric Scholarship Scheme cropped up in the Vidhan Sabha two months back, the matter still remains in a limbo.

The government has not released grants to the colleges, which is resulting in harassment of the genuine students. The colleges, on the other hand, are calling it all a hoax and a delaying tactic to delay the disbursement of the scholarship to them. Inquiries are reportedly being conducted but nothing has surfaced so far.

The list of the colleges from where the alleged scam came got reported has as many as 1,058 fudged cases were from Doaba region alone. While as many as 135 fake cases had been reported from Rayat Polytechnic College, Rail Majra, there were as many as 106 from Lord Krishna Polytechnic College Kapurthala. The government polytechnics too were not far behind. Fudged reports of as many as 88 students came from four government polytechnics including those in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Kapurthala.

Sandeep Sharma, Principal, Lord Krishna Polytechnic College, Kapurthala, says, “We are nowhere at fault. If there were 100 students who reported to us and sought claims, it is natural for 10 per cent of them to drop the course. The government should penalise the students not us. We had submitted a written reply to the director of the department on showcause given to us but his office did not somehow receive it and put us in ‘no admission zone’. But then we sent the reply by hand and are hopeful of a clearance soon. We get as many as 80 per cent SC students, whom we cannot charge at all. The scholarship of all these students is lying pending and we are not in a condition to pay salaries to the staff or even bus tax.”

Narinder Singh, Principal, Government Polytechnic College, Jalandhar, also claims, “All fake 30 cases reflecting against our name are those of dropout students. We had sent their list to the head office two months after admission as we strike off the names of those students who remain absent for 10 days. There have been 400 genuine claims from our college for the last year. There has been no mistake at our end”.

But Justice Nirmal Singh (retd), SAD MLA from Bassi Pathana on whose question the issue erupted, said, “If the students had dropped out of colleges, it was their duty to have withdrawn their names right away instead of going ahead and continuing to claim their scholarship. I do not know who is at fault but I am told that the Welfare Department has begun an inquiry in all districts and truth must come forth. The vigilance inquiry is yet to be started.”

Rajinder Singh, District Welfare Officer, Jalandhar, however, said, “There is no such inquiry marked to us. We are not even aware as to if there are any such fake cases reported from Jalandhar. I will have to check it from the directorate”.

Background

A total of 5,925 students of polytechnic and 201 students from ITIs had obtained the scholarship by adopting unfair means and had wrongly claimed Rs 18.06 crore and Rs 27.1 lakh, respectively, from the government. The matter was raked up by Justice Nirmal Singh (retd) and CPS Pawan Tinu. Thereafter, Technical Education and Industrial Training Minister Madan Mohan Mittal had replied that showcause notices were issued to 116 polytechnics and 64 ITIs for wrong doings, of which four polytechnics were put under no-admission zone for the ensuing session 2016-17. These include Lord Krishna Polytechnic College Kapurthala, Bahra Polytechnic College Patiala, Guru Arjan Dev Polytechnic College Ludhiana and Universal Polytechnic College Lalru. Thereafter, Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal had ordered a vigilance inquiry into the matter.

How Aashirwad web Portal pointed to duplication

It was in 2013-14 that the welfare department launched portal Aashirwad for online disbursement of SC Post Matric Scholarship Scheme. All eligible SC students after obtaining admission in any institute submit online claims on it, which are thereafter verified by the heads of the institutes. The report reads, “The claims for the session 2014-15 were settled by the welfare department upon which it found some irregularities on various accounts like double admission/ wrong Adhaar number/ Adhaar number of other students/ discontinuation of the course by the students.”