CID probing minority scholarship scam: Minister Ranjeet Dutta

GUWAHATI, Oct 5: The Criminal Investigation Department of Assam (CID) Police probing the multi-crore minority scholarship scam in the State has so far arrested three persons from Morigaon district.

State Minority Development Affairs minister Ranjeet Dutta while informing the Assembly about the scam on Friday said a section of headmasters and teachers along with IT experts had fraudulently siphoned off huge amount of money meant for giving scholarships to poor meritorious minority students.

“Application & selection of deserving candidates for minority scholarship scheme was done through online to prevent any fraud. But a code number to operate the online system was available with a section of headmasters. These headmasters used such code with some IT service providers and hacked the online system to do the fraud. The CID probe will dig out the details during its probe,” Dutta told the Assembly.

Dutta, who was responding to the issue of Rs 200 crore minority scholarship scam raised by the AIUDF MLA Aminul Islam, said the scholarship has been awarded to 4.18 lakh minority students under pre-matric, post-matric and merit scholarship categories during 2016-17 and 2017-18.

He said the online minority scholarship scheme for the current financial year has already been started and deputy commissioners have been entrusted to strictly monitor the scheme to prevent committing frauds.

According to Dutta the government has allocated Rs 414 crore for development and welfare of minorities in Assam from 2011-12 to 2018-19. The State has so far spent Rs 219 crore for various development projects such as setting up it is, skill development centres, girls’ hostels and schools. He said under the MSDP the government will set up 21 model residential schools for minority students out of which three will be exclusively for girls with hostel accommodation.

Participating in a discussion on the issue Congress MLA Roselina Tirkey said there is a general perception in the State that minority implies only the Muslims. She demanded that the minority welfare schemes must cover six notified minority communities—Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Persi.