Hyderabad: At least five institutes in Andhra Pradesh and 11 institutes in Telangana indulged in minority scholarship scams. The CBI on Tuesday registered cases against 830 institutes in the country for misusing Rs 144 crore in funds under the minority scholarship programme between 2017 and 2022. In Andhra Pradesh, a total of 11 institutes are located and 59 institutes are located in Telangana.
Indevar Pandey, secretary of the Ministry of Minority Welfare, lodged a complaint with CBI in Delhi stating that they found irregularities in the minority scholarship programme after a number of institutes indulged in misusing funds by submitting fake and forged documents. Based on the complaint, CBI officials registered cases of forgery, criminal conspiracy, cheating, using forged documents as genuine, and others.
In the FIR, the CBI officials said that the Ministry of Minority Affairs is implementing three Scholarship Schemes as Pre-Matric Scholarships, Post-Matric Scholarships, and Merit cum-Means for the students of Six Minority Communities such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parasis. The Scholarships are provided to minority students studying in more than 1.8 lakh institutions. In the last 5 years ending 2021-22 an average of 65 lakh students received scholarships every year.
Considering various reports received on the embezzlement of funds under the Scholarship Schemes, the Ministry has engaged the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) to carry out a third-party evaluation of the Scholarship Schemes. Besides that, the Ministry also carried out evaluation through the National Scholarship Portal by generating Red Flags on doubtful Institutions and Applicants. A total of 1,572 institutes were identified for evaluation based on Red Flags generated on NSP. Out of 1,572 Institutions from 21 States, 830 Institutions were found either non-operational fake or partially fake.
"In states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh Schools have not disabled their old UDISE code and are using both codes to fill out applications. Schools have different UDISE code for different levels of education provided by them. One institute in the Hyderabad district was verified and found fake. It was informed by the NCAER while sharing the Interim Report of the Study," the CBI officials said.
