INVC NEWS
Chandigarh,
Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report no. 12 presented in the Lok Sabha highlighted the frauds and corruption currently happening in Punjab, especially the misuse of the post matric scholarship where the names of the Scheduled Castes 
students are being fraudulently used by Private Institutes and management to provide admission to private non-scheduled castes students. Paramjit Singh Kainth, President of the National Scheduled Castes Alliance blamed the state government for the misuse of the scheme meant for the benefit of the poor students but instead is being utilized by the private institutes with political patronage for their own greedy motives.
He said, “According to the recent report of the CAG presented in the Lok Sabha reveals that along with Punjab, 5 more States have been home to corruption in the Post matric Scholarship (PMS) scheme, putting the future of poor students in jeopardy. Out of the 6.29 lakh scholarships granted in Punjab, names of 3275 students were misused to gain the amount for the PMS scheme twice by the private institutes. Private institutes even charged registration fees, education fees, college fund etc on the Scheduled Castes students and still gained hefty amounts in their names under the PMS scheme, not providing any relief in return to those poor students.
CAG in his report revealed that between April 2012 and March 2017, private institutes in 6 districts of Punjab were monitored and it was found that an amount of Rs. 15.63 crore was misused by those institutes. Kainth said “Management of these institutes has political patronage with Bureaucracy working for them. Officials of the education department have failed miserably to control these private institutes and the state government has been inefficient in controlling the corruption going on in the scheme. It has been provided within the scheme that Scheduled Castes students will be provided with the relief amount deposited in their accounts but between the years 2012-2016, there has been a huge delay in the students getting any type of relief from the state government. Astonishingly the government in the year 2016-17 till November 2017 has not granted relief amount to almost 3.21 lakh of students.”
Kainth further lamented on the dismal condition of the State government saying “This anti-poor government does not even has the record of the students who have been granted the scholarship, checking whether they completed their studies or have had to leave due to economic or any other hardship. There is record of the amount granted in relief under the names of those students who have left their education in between.”
According to the report, between the year 2012 till 2017 there has been an increase in the number of students enrolling in education institutes but there is no mechanism in place to record the number of students who have benefitted from the scheme. There has been a steady increase in students from 1.47 lakh in 2012-13, 2.18 lakh in 2013-14, 2.70 lakh in 2014-15, 3.06 lakh in 2015-16, 3.21 lakh in 2016-17. Kainth said “It is surprising that the students enrolling for the scheme are increasing day by day but the state government has no database in place to record those who have been granted relief. There is no stipulated time for the granting of relief to these poor students, hence the private education institutes utilize this loophole to misuse the funds provided in the PMS scheme.”
According to the rules of the PMS scheme, every year in June, applications for the scholarship are asked and after which from the government’s coffers amount is generated for the dispensation of the relief amount under the scheme. Completely ignoring the rules, Applications of SC students were asked by the government in the month of November in 2012, in the month of July in 2013, 26th June in 2014, 29th December in 2015 and 4th January in 2017.
In 2012-17, the State government had presented a budget of Rs 1403.14 crore under the PMS scheme to the Union government. An amount of Rs 1031.06 crore was generated by the Union government and Rs 372.08 core was left out of the central contribution. In the same time (2012-17), the Central government released Rs 306.71 crore for the scheme but the State government of Punjab only provided Rs. 273.48 crore to the education institutes, giving no clarification for the remaining amount of Rs. 33.23 crore.
Kainth further told, “In 6 districts of Punjab, out of 49 educational institutes 3684 students from total 57986 students did not complete their educational course during the years 2012-17. Even after these students left their studies, the institutes still gathered Rs. 14.31 crore from the State government under these students names citing tuition fees, maintenance fees etc. In the report, in years 2013-17, 29 institutes were audited and out of which 24 institutes had gathered Rs. 10.14 crore from the government under the name of 39,213 scheduled castes students, citing fees and charges of various kinds.”
Kainth demanded that this matter has highlighted the inefficiencies of the state government and the corruption and frauds plaguing the success of the post matric scholarship scheme should be inquired into by the CBI and the culprits behind such fraud should be dealt harsh punishments. He said “The state government should be ashamed of its inability to tackle corruption right under its nose. The CAG report of 2018 presented in the Lok Sabha has outright brought out the fact that the State government is hardly concerned with the future of poor students and especially keen on helping the big private institutes and their management. Political leaders owning private institutes should be investigated as soon as possible and a proper investigation should be initiated at the earliest.”
