Nagpur, July 30 (PTI) In a major breakthrough, police arrested two primary education officers of Nagpur Zilla Parishad who allegedly created bogus IDs on the Shalarth portal of the Maharashtra government and siphoned off Rs 100 crore by approving ‘salaries’ to 398 non-existent teachers.
The scam involved creating thousands of fake teacher identities on the salary and HR portal, Shalarth, to siphon off public money, with 650 bogus IDs being exposed so far.
The arrest of Rohini Kumbhar (49) and Siddheshwar Kaluse (50) on Tuesday took the number of people held so far to 16, including senior education officers, school principals, and institution heads.
A Nagpur Police official stated on Wednesday that Kumbhar and Kaluse allegedly created fake IDs on the Shalarth portal and misused government funds by approving salaries for 398 ‘teachers’, resulting in a Rs 100 crore loss to the state exchequer.
The investigation into the scam began three months ago after a case was registered at the cyber police station in Nagpur.
With new details emerging, the state government set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and subsequently expanded its scope to investigate similar cases registered in various districts.
The SIT head has been authorised to include additional police officers in the team as needed to facilitate the probe. Furthermore, the SIT has been instructed to collect all documents from the cases registered at various police stations and commence a comprehensive investigation, Mumbai Police officials said on Monday. PTI COR NSK
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