SATISH HANDA

After investigation by State Vigilance Bureau Haryana detected fraud of value worth Rs 43 crore in as many as 16 districts in the state towards scholarships to be paid to schedule caste – schedule tribe students introduced by Haryana state government in year 1981 and complete status report  was submitted to Punjab and Haryana High Court for hearing in fraud case in which large number of government officers and staff in educational schools are likely to be convicted by the court. Investigation report by vigilance department reveals that scholarship amount was given to between 30 to 40 percent in past three decades and even 25 to 30 percents schools were found not existing in Haryana state. In most of the cases, vigilance team detected false ‘Aadhar card’ numbers and amount remitted to students in fake accounts. Surprisingly, the fraud continued in past five years manually in-spite of the fact on-line remittance of scholarship amount system was introduced in the year 2015-16 and none of the senior officer of the department tried to intervene into the matter due to reasons best known to them.

Information reveals, on the complaint of State Vigilance Bureau, Hisar police registered a cased against 12 officers, employees of Schedule Caste & Backward Class Welfare Department Haryana including two deputy directors Anil Kumar and Rajinder Sangwan allegedly involved in this fraud in reimbursement of post-matric scholarship amount to students belonging to schedule caste and backward classes in Hisar, Sirsa, Fatehbad, Bhiwani, Charkhi Dadri and few other districts. Both senior officers of the department are posted at the head office Chandigarh at present. Among others booked in said fraud include Balwan Singh then posted as District Welfare officer already retired from service, Vinod Kumar Chawla, Suresh Kumar all working as District Welfare Officers, Bilender Singh, Surinder Kumar both presently under suspension and few other employees of the department Tej Pal, Arvind Sangwan, Raj Kumar, Ashok Kumar and Sunil Kumar named by the vigilance department involved in fraud conspiracy.

This scam was detected by Sanjeev Verma then Director SC-BC Welfare Department Chandigarh whose complaint was ignored by senior state government bureaucrats when Verma threatened to protest and police had to register FIR, but in the meantime Verma was transferred from the department. However, fraud matter came into the notice of Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khatter handed over the case to State Vigilance Bureau for thorough investigation and all those involved in this scam worth crores of rupees trapped in net