Many colleges are accused of showing fake admission under Scheduled Cast and Scheduled Tribe quota to grab the scholarship provided by social welfare department to students of weaker sections of the society.
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A Special Investigation Team of the state police made the first arrest in the Rs 500-crore scholarship scam in Uttarakhand on Tuesday.
Many colleges are accused of showing fake admission under Scheduled Cast and Scheduled Tribe quota to grab the scholarship provided by social welfare department to students of weaker sections of the society.
Ankur Sharma, managing director and associate director of Institute of Professional Studies, Bedpur (Roorkee), in district Haridwar was arrested for misuse of scholarship, provided by government.
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The college allegedly received Rs 6.28 crore as scholarship for SC/ST students in 2014-15 and 2015-16. When the SIT team conducted investigation it found that the students, who were shown as beneficiaries of the scholarship, were never enrolled in the Institute of Professional Studies.
The team failed to find any registration form or documents of the SC/ST students, who received the social welfare department’s scholarship. As the social welfare department transferred the scholarship amount into the student’s bank account, it was transferred to the institute’s account.
In many forms the mobile numbers of the students were the same. The scholarship money was allegedly gobbled by the institute by showing fake SC/ST students.
Sharma was arrested for cheating and criminal conspiracy. The cops are now looking for manager Vivek Sharma, who remains missing.
Even after the Trivendra Rawat government ordered for a SIT in the scam, the social welfare department was showing little interest in the investigation. This forced social worker Ravinder Jugran to file a PIL in the High Court.
“When the SIT failed to make any progress even after two years, I was forced to take help of the court,” Jugran said.
Many other colleges also used the same methodology to grab the scholarship money. Colleges from Dehradun, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar are on the radar of the SIT team.
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