The government will scrutinise 55,000 scholarships granted under the minority scholarship programme, following the centre’s order, as almost 26% of the 25.5 lakh scholarships across the country were found to have fake beneficiaries.

Scholarships in Gujarat under scanner

Minister for social justice and empowerment in the Gujarat government, Bhanu Babariya, announced a thorough probe in Gujarat on Dec 5 as per the direction of the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MOMA).

Preliminary verification in the state revealed no bogus cases of the scholarship program. However, the officials have also assured that the nodal officers scrutinise the applications before granting the scholarships.

As the amount is directly transferred into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries, the error margin is nullified, said the officials.

Centre against malpractices in minority scholarships

A total of 25.5 lakh applications were received by the MOMA for the minority scholarship programme for the academic year 2022-23. Upon verifying the programme beneficiaries’ Aadhar cards and biometrics submitted to the state department, 26% of the applicants were found to be fake on Dec 1.

As per reports, 30% of the renewal applications were deemed fake as well.

The reports also mentioned that 18.8 lakh of the applications could be verified by the centre, which also included 6.2 lakh scholarship renewals.

The scholarship programme is sanctioned by officials at the institute and district levels. The institutional nodal official (INO) and the heads of institutions (HoI) sanction the scholarship applications.

As per reports, 5,422 of the INOs and 4,834 of the HoIs were found to have been absent during the biometric authentications. A probe has been ordered into this, and a scholarship verification drive was also launched on the same day.

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