Dehradun : Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday said that any kind of irregularity will not be tolerated in welfare programmes like scholarships in the state and vowed to take strict action against anyone found guilty in this case.
Taking cognisance of the serious cases of irregularities committed by institutions registered on the National Scholarship Portal and the embezzlement of scholarship amounts through the use of fake documents, Chief Minister Dhami has given instructions to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT).
During the preliminary investigation, it was discovered that some institutions had received minority scholarships based on fraudulent documents, including some madrasas, Sanskrit schools, and other educational institutions. The Chief Minister stated that the corrupt would not be spared.
According to the data of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 sessions provided by the Central Government, a total of 92 institutions of the state are under suspicion. Out of these, scholarship embezzlement has been confirmed in the preliminary investigation against 17 institutions. In some cases, the number of students, identity cards (Aadhaar cards), and residence-related documents have been found to be fake in these institutions. I
According to an official statement, irregularities have been discovered in institutions such as Saraswati Shishu Mandir High School in Udham Singh Nagar district and Vasukedaar Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya in Rudraprayag. Apart from this, institutions of Nainital, Haridwar and other districts are also under investigation.
The SIT will investigate this matter in depth, in which the role of the concerned officials, along with the institutions involved, will also be reviewed. The central government has issued instructions to investigate seven key points in this regard, which also include identifying fake cases and registering FIRs against the relevant parties.