Rs 144 crore scam in Scholarships exposed by Minority Ministry

• Minorities’ 830 education institutes, madarasas, etc., only on paper

• CBI to investigate the matter

New Delhi – A huge scam in the Government’s ‘Scholarship Scheme’ has been exposed under the Ministry of Minority Affairs. It has been found that in 21 States, out of 1,572 education institutes, 830 institutes are fake and only on paper. The Government has handed over a probe into this scam to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The Administrative Officers have misappropriated Rs 144.83 crore in the last five years.

• Crores of rupees were withdrawn from the bank accounts for giving scholarships to fake madarasas and non-existing students.

• Presently, there are about 1,80,000 minority education institutes in the country. Out of them, 1,75, 000 are madarasas, and only 27,000 among them are registered and eligible for scholarships.

• This scholarship is given to students from the first standard to students studying for a doctorate degree and includes a minimum Rs 4,000 to a maximum Rs 25,000.

Unnerving statistics about the scam

• There are 22 students registered on one cell number. In the last four years, eight lakh students were given scholarships in this way only in Malappuram District of Kerala.

• In a bank’s branch in Nagaon in Assam, 66,000 accounts were opened at the same time for scholarships.

• In a college in Anantnag in Kashmir, 7,000 students were recorded for giving scholarships when there were only 5,000 students studying in that college.

• Scholarships were given to 1,32,000 students, although they were not staying in hostels.

This is how the scam was exposed

• As per the information given by the sources of the Minority Ministry, the scam was noticed when, in 2016, the scholarship process was totally digitalised.

• In 2022, Minority Ministry was handed over to the Union Minister Smruti Irani, and its high-level inquiry was started considering the seriousness of the issue.

• The Union Government has spent Rs 22,000 crore on children from minority education institutes; including Rs 2,239 crore in the last year. In 12 lakh branches of different banks in this country, about 5,000 students are given scholarships from every branch.

Editorial Viewpoints

• Madarasas, being used as the centres of teaching dangerous activities like terrorism, Love Jihad, conversions, rapes, etc., have become a headache for India. The money, in crores, extracted in the name of fake madarasas and fake students is the money paid by Hindus by way of taxes; therefore, why shouldn’t be a permanent ban imposed on such madarasas ?
  

• All officers responsible for this scam should be suspended from work and sentenced to life imprisonment, along with recovering the looted money from them.