A massive scam linked to the ‘Ishan-Uday’ scholarship scheme meant for the undergraduate students of the North-east has come to light. Many irregularities have been found in the beneficiary list of the scholarship for the year 2020-21.
While analysing the merit list in the National Scholarship Portal (NSP), a number of anomalies in the name entries and college names have been detected. Bogus names, fake/fictitious/closed institutes along with fictitious/dubious credentials filled the merit list.
One such college is Dibya College of Nursing, where a number of beneficiaries are enrolled in the Bachelor of Engineering degree. Headline8 spoke to an official of the college who said that the college only offers course in nursing. “Our college offers only nursing courses. We do not offer any other courses here,” the official said.
To double-check the information, Headline8 also went through the official website of the college. It was found that the college offers only three courses- ANM ( Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery), B.SC (Nursing) and P.B.B.Sc (Nursing).
This is just the tip of the ice-berg, the list is full of many such irregularities, some of which are shown below:
It is worth noting that as per the merit list while a whopping number of 374, 550 and 533 students of Assam are availing scholarships from dubious institutes like Victoria Inter College, Medak Institute of Technology and Pharmacy and St Paul’s College of Management and Information Technology respectively, the premiere institutions of the state like Gauhati University, Dibrugarh University, Tezpur University, Assam Engineering College, Assam Medical College and others only have a total of 184 students who were availing scholarship under the scheme.
Meanwhile, a number of students of the state have taken to social media platforms alleging foul play and demanding a serious enquiry in the matter.
Respected Sir @CMOfficeAssam @ugc_india @himantabiswa @sarbanandsonwal .
Sir,this year there is a huge scam going on in UGC scholarship of Ishan Uday for NER Startes.
A person with the same name and same college is being selected multiple times,and some colleges.#UGC_SCAM. pic.twitter.com/sF6naawtVN— Joysring Bathari (@JoysringB) July 25, 2021
SCAM BY UGC ISHAN UDAY 238 selected from one college named VICTORIA INTER COLLEGE.Many duplicate and fake names used,student name is MUSLIM but father name is HINDU and religion is given CHRISTIAN. #UGC #ishanudayscam2021 pic.twitter.com/VTYucLq6j5
— Thangminlian Hauzel (@ThangminlianH) July 26, 2021
The Assam Unit of National Students Union of India (NSUI), has termed it a multi-crore scholarship scam and have demanded a CBI enquiry into the matter.
“NSUI strongly protests against this widespread corruption under the name of students of Assam undertaken by school workers and State Education Department Officials who must have undertaken this multi-crore corruption scandal under the blessings of the Education Ministry. In this regard, Assam NSUI demands a CBI Enquiry upon the scandal at the earliest and requests the financial crime investigation authorities to arrest everyone who could be held accountable to this scam,” Krishanu Baruah, Assam State NSUI President stated.
Responding to the development, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the body which looks after the Ishan-Uday scholarship, said that the merit list has been withheld and is being examined. “We have talked to NSP and are examining the merit list. It will take sometime. No scholarship payments will be made now as the The list has been withheld ,” UGC Joint-Secretary Dr. Surender Singh said.
It is worth mentioning that the scam is not only limited to Assam. The Frontier Manipur, a media house based in Manipur had also revealed several suspicious irregularities and abnormalities in the selected list for Ishan Uday Scholarship for the session 2020-2021.