FIR lodged in HP scholarship scam

The police have registered a case in connection with an alleged scam in Himachal Pradesh government scholarships for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Classes students, police said Saturday.

Several students had complained that they had not received their post-matric scholarships.

An FIR was registered Friday under various sections of the IPC at Shimla East police station by a state education department official, Shakti Bhushan, who had conducted preliminary inquiry into the scam, the police said.

The probe was ordered by Himachal Pradesh Education Secretary Arun Sharma.

Bhushan submitted his report in August.

During the inquiry, it was found that 250 students of Kangra district took admissions in Fatehpur and Vadukar (Karnataka) centres of Lovely Professional University (LPU), an education department official said.

At the time of filling up the forms, the varsity's management declared that it will provide scholarship to the students of SC, ST and OBC categories. It said the amount will be transferred to their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts, he said.

However, the inquiry showed that the money was deposited in fake accounts opened using the students' Aadhaar details, he added.

The official said the scholarship scheme was launched by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in 2008-09.

It was made online from 2013-14, he said.

The official said this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Most of the post-matric SC, ST, OBC scholarships distributed through about 300 private institutions have not been deposited in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries, he said.

The Himachal Pradesh government has already decided to handover the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a state official said.

The probe agency asked the state government to register an FIR in this regard before handing over the case to it, he said.