CAG finds govt scholarship given to failed students

New Delhi, Aug 28 (UNI) Even students who have failed in the previous classes have managed to get scholarship.

The surprising fact came to light in a Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG) check in five states and union territories about the implementation of the Central scholarship for poor and meritorious Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes students.

Among the many cases of irregularities in the disbursement of the scholarship, the audit found that in Chhatisgarh, Rs 0.18 lakh was paid to 17 students who had failed in the previous classes.

The inquiry team was in for more surprise when they found that son of a civil service officer in Arunachal Pradesh was selected for the scholarship which is open to only those ST/SC students whose parents' income from all sources did not exceed Rs 1.00 lakh per annum.

The objective of the scholarship is to enable children of parents engaged in unclean occupation like scavengers of dry-latrins, tanners, flayers and sweepers etc to pursue pe-matric and higher education.

In Rajasthan, Rs 8.70 crore of scholarship was disbursed to students studying in unrecongnised centres, and in Madhya Pradesh scholarship was paid to 7653 ineligible children due to inadequate scrutiny of occupation certificate.

In Maharashtra, in four out of 10 districts, the District Social Welfare Office extended scholarship benefits amounting to Rs 6.18 lakh to 625 students whose parents were not engaged in unclean occupations.

In Meghalaya, the scholarship was paid just on the basis of income certificate furnished by the local MLA or member of the district council.

Such cases abound, the CAG said in its latest report tabled in Parliament.

It said scholarships aggregating to Rs 9.08 Crore were disbursed to ineligible students in five states and union territories.

Moreover, the Report said scholarships were not disbursed in time in four states and union territories due to non-release of required funds or their release at the fag end of the year.

Four states even did not return the undisbursed amount to the Central Government but remitted it to their revenue account.

There were very acute deficiencies in the system of the selection of beneficieries, the CAG said.

Indicting the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the CAG has asked them to put in place appropriate monitoring mechanism and institute internal audit of the pre-matric and post-matric scholarship.

UNI