Shimla: The central government is conducting an inquiry into an alleged multi-crore scam in post-matric scholarships for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Classes students, Union minister Vijay Samla said on Sunday.The Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment said, “We got reports about the scam from not only Himachal Pradesh but other parts of the country as well. Scam of Rs 450 crore was also reported from my home state Punjab.”“Taking cognizance of these reports, the social justice and empowerment department is already conducting an inquiry into the matter,” Sampla said.An audit of the distribution of post-matric scholarship was also on and appropriate action would be taken after getting a report on it, he said. The department was considering taking corrective steps to check fraud and the scholarship money might now be directly deposited in the Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of eligible SC/BC/OBC students after checking their attendance in educational institutions, he added.Sampla said the post-matric scholarship was launched in 2008-09 and under it the department used to provide an amount to the states. Later, an online system was launched and the states directly deposited the scholarship amount to bank accounts of the beneficiary students whose annual family income was below Rs 2 lakh. The amount was then revised to Rs 2.5 lakh, he said.The students would be provided the money for fees, books and other financial support as scholarship but there were several reports across the country that the money was being deposited in fake bank accounts, Sampla said. An FIR was registered by the Himachal Pradesh Education Department in Shimla Friday through its official, Shakti Bhushan, who conducted a preliminary probe.

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