Bengal police probing diversion of state grant for higher secondary students

The West Bengal government’s one-time grant of ₹10,000 for Class 11 and 12 students of state-run and state-sponsored schools and madrassas for buying tablets or smartphones have not reached around a hundred beneficiaries in five districts because of a suspected scam , the education department has said in a report to the government.
“It is possible that cyber criminals based in other states are involved. I will talk to chief minister Mamata Banerjee. She can decide whether the criminal investigation department (CID) should take over the investigation from the district police,” education minister Bratya Basu said on Saturday.
Around 0.97 million students will receive this grant in 2023-24, the government website said. A budget of ₹900 crore has been set under this scheme this year.
Police in East Midnapore, East Burdwan, Jhargram, Malda and North 24 Parganas districts are looking into complaints around half a dozen schools have received from around 100 students stating that they did not receive the money.
These schools told the police that they filled the forms and uploaded necessary documents on the state government’s designated portal.
“Investigation showed that in several cases the last three or four digits of the bank account numbers of the students were changed, resulting in the money getting credited into the accounts of strangers who were not even aware of the online transfer,” an East Midnapore district police officer said.
“It is possible that this happened due to errors by data entry operators,” the officer added.
In 2022, Mamata Banerjee launched the West Bengal Taruner Swapna Scheme under which the state gives a one-time assistance of ₹10,000 to Class 12 students for buying tablets or smartphones. The chief minister announced earlier this year that Class 11 students can apply for the scheme instead of waiting for their final exam.
According to the government website, more than 36 million students have benefited from this scheme so far. The money is credited to bank accounts through the direct benefit transfer (DBT) system.