Using computers, UP govt finds 45 lakh fake beneficiaries of scholarships

The Social Welfare Department, Department of Minorities' Welfare and the Department of Backward Classes Welfare will be out with the final tally, expected to be much higher, by June, when the next round of scholarships are released.

The state government pays around Rs 700 crore annually as scholarships under various categories - one of which stands at Rs 5. But the free books and uniforms given at government schools are not covered under scholarships.

A first of its kind initiative in the country, the computerisation was done by the state's department of Information Technology on August 30, 2007. Titled the 'Scholarship Management System', the database included all information, including the name and account number of the bank through which the child received the money. The banks were asked to submit details regularly about when the money was deposited and when it was withdrawn. Better still, the database also enables the recipient to track the money at the bank.

The fraud was detected when the three government departments were checking the progress of the system. It was found that the actual number of beneficiaries before the computerisation was much higher.

CB Singh, nodal officer and the finance controller of the Social Welfare Department, said that figure now is estimated to be 1.40 crore. Earlier, it was around 1.80 crore. "We have a number of scholarships between classes I to the technical education scholarships too, amounting between Rs 25 and Rs 800. We realised in many cases, children had dropped out of schools but the scholarships were continuing." In other cases, money was not withdrawn for over six months and on verification it was found that the child had dropped out of school. "We are expecting to get the actual figures of the excess money paid in April," he added. The Department of Minorities Welfare too, found that there was a difference in figures.

“So far, we have calculated a difference of around Rs 3 lakh and the figures are increasing each day,” said the deputy director and nodal officer for the department, R Yadav. He added that all the district level officers have been asked to verify the numbers.

At the moment, the state is shelling out Rs 68,757,31,030 for 3,20,25,081 students under various categories.