<p>New Delhi: The Centre, in a verification of 1,572 institutes under the minority scholarship programme from 21 states, has found that 830 of them are either non-existent or beneficiaries were fully or partially fake. The Minority affairs ministry said that it carried out a third party evaluation study and physical verification of these institutes.</p><p>Responding to a question by Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Ambedkar Nagar Ritesh Pandey who sought to know about investigations on the number of fake institutions under the scholarship scheme, minister of minority affairs Smriti Irani said that the ministry, taking cognisance of media reports and the All India Performance Audit Report, engaged a third party to find out about the Institutes and applicants under the schemes.</p><p>“The findings of the study indicated gross irregularities with instances where benefit of Scholarship Schemes is not reaching to the targeted beneficiaries. Government being seized of the complaints, a sample of 1,572 institutes were identified for evaluation based on red flags generated on National Scholarship Portal (NSP). Out of 1,572 Institutions from 21 States, 830 Institutions are found either non-operational or fake or partial fake. These 830 institutes were either non-existent or beneficiaries were fully fake/partially fake,” Irani said in her reply. She added that the ministry referred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for investigation and the CBI filed an FIR on August 28. </p><p>Irani also said that the entire process of verification and validation is done by state functionaries. “After the online submission of application for scholarships, the onus of verification lies with the Nodal Officer of the institute and then the district or state nodal officers of the concerned state. Once the application is verified at both the levels, the National Scholarship Portal runs the sanity checks and generates red flags. The applications with red flags are again sent to the State Nodal Officer for revalidation,” Irani said. </p><p>She said that thereafter the Ministry only has to finally sign the payment files and push it to the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).</p><p>Irani added that the government has taken various exercises to clean up and revamp the system in the last two years through the verification of applicants and of authorities to ensure that such cases of fraudulence are not repeated. </p><p>“As a policy intervention, an intensive drive for Aadhaar-based biometric authentication of all verifying authorities and finally verified applicants, have been conducted and it has been ensured that henceforth, leakage can be curtailed,” she said. </p>
<p>New Delhi: The Centre, in a verification of 1,572 institutes under the minority scholarship programme from 21 states, has found that 830 of them are either non-existent or beneficiaries were fully or partially fake. The Minority affairs ministry said that it carried out a third party evaluation study and physical verification of these institutes.</p><p>Responding to a question by Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Ambedkar Nagar Ritesh Pandey who sought to know about investigations on the number of fake institutions under the scholarship scheme, minister of minority affairs Smriti Irani said that the ministry, taking cognisance of media reports and the All India Performance Audit Report, engaged a third party to find out about the Institutes and applicants under the schemes.</p><p>“The findings of the study indicated gross irregularities with instances where benefit of Scholarship Schemes is not reaching to the targeted beneficiaries. Government being seized of the complaints, a sample of 1,572 institutes were identified for evaluation based on red flags generated on National Scholarship Portal (NSP). Out of 1,572 Institutions from 21 States, 830 Institutions are found either non-operational or fake or partial fake. These 830 institutes were either non-existent or beneficiaries were fully fake/partially fake,” Irani said in her reply. She added that the ministry referred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for investigation and the CBI filed an FIR on August 28. </p><p>Irani also said that the entire process of verification and validation is done by state functionaries. “After the online submission of application for scholarships, the onus of verification lies with the Nodal Officer of the institute and then the district or state nodal officers of the concerned state. Once the application is verified at both the levels, the National Scholarship Portal runs the sanity checks and generates red flags. The applications with red flags are again sent to the State Nodal Officer for revalidation,” Irani said. </p><p>She said that thereafter the Ministry only has to finally sign the payment files and push it to the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).</p><p>Irani added that the government has taken various exercises to clean up and revamp the system in the last two years through the verification of applicants and of authorities to ensure that such cases of fraudulence are not repeated. </p><p>“As a policy intervention, an intensive drive for Aadhaar-based biometric authentication of all verifying authorities and finally verified applicants, have been conducted and it has been ensured that henceforth, leakage can be curtailed,” she said. </p>