Suspected fraudulent payments released under scholarship scheme in Haryana, says CAG report

The report shows only 52.24% of applications were paid scholarships during 2015-19, while 37% were not paid, even though sanctioned amounts were drawn from the treasury.

Students in a classroom (representational image) | Flickr

Chandigarh: Suspected fraudulent payments worth crores of rupees were released by manipulating Aadhaar numbers of students under the post-matric scholarship scheme between 2014 and 2019 in Haryana, according to a CAG report tabled in the state assembly.

Only 52.24 per cent of applications were paid scholarships during 2015-19, while 37 per cent of approved cases were not paid scholarships, it said.

The Technical Education Department did not pay a scholarship totaling Rs 17.98 crore to 7,757 students though the amount was sanctioned and drawn from the treasury, as per the report.

The objective of the central government-funded post-matric scholarship scheme is to give financial aid to the SC and OBC students who are pursuing post-matric courses through recognised institutions.

A performance audit of the post-matric scholarship schemes has brought out deficiencies in planning and financial management, inadequate scrutiny of applications of students, irregularities in disbursement of scholarship, suspected fraudulent payment, weak monitoring mechanism, etc.

The audit looked into the cases from 2014-19.

Annual Action Plan and database of eligible students to ascertain coverage of SC/OBC students under the schemes was not prepared, as per the CAG report on ‘Social, General and Economic Sectors’ tabled in the Haryana Assembly on Tuesday.

Funds drawn in anticipation of expenditure were kept in bank accounts and unspent funds were not deposited in government accounts resulting in loss of interest of Rs 6.43 crore to the state exchequer, it said.

“Suspected fraudulent payment of Rs 18.98 crore was made by manipulating Aadhaar numbers of students. Payment of scholarship of Rs 9.65 crore was suspected to be fraudulent as their details could not be verified with supporting records, the report added.

The CAG report pointed out that inadequate scrutiny of income/caste certificates, etc. of students resulted in irregular payment of scholarship totaling to Rs 1.91 crore.

Suspected fraudulent scholarship payments totaling to Rs 4.74 crore was made to students studying outside the state, it said.

It also said that the monitoring mechanism was weak while evaluation of the schemes to assess its outcome/effectiveness was not conducted.

The Haryana Vigilance Bureau had also registered multiple FIRs in the scam and was investigating the case.