Monday, March 30, 2015

Private colleges in Jabalpur under scanner over scholarship fund.

Hindustan Times: Jabalpur: Monday, March 30, 2015.
The Jabalpur administration has served notices on several private colleges after an RTI reply revealed alleged irregularities in disbursement of post-matric scholarship between 2007 and 2014, the district collector said on Saturday.
The notices, served on private institutions in the district running professional and technical courses including engineering and management, has asked the authorities to furnish details of students who have benefited from the scholarship, said collector SN Rupla.
“Action will be taken against the colleges if they are found guilty of wrong disbursement of scholarship,” he said adding that “the alleged irregularities pertained to the period when funds were allotted to the colleges which used to disburse the same to the students.”
He added that the practice was discontinued recently and “now the scholarship amount is transferred online into the bank account of the beneficiary student.”
The Engineering Students’ Organisation, an umbrella body of students, had procured details of the scholarships through an RTI query besides details available online from the department’s website.
The organisation had later made a representation to the district collector demanding a probe into the alleged irregularities.“The ESO is not targeting any particular private college; there is irregularity in disbursement of scholarship in maximum colleges of the state,” said Deepak Nahar, a member of the organisation.
He said that quoting documents that “a college disbursed scholarship to a single student showing him (as) studying in the first and second semesters in two separate courses at the same time.”
Another member of the body said irregularities in disbursement of funds allotted to colleges under a Central government scheme have also been detected in other institutions located in Bhopal, Indore and Gwalior besides Jabalpur.
“We have even made a representation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the MP government’s economic offence wing recently demanding probe into the matter,” he added.