Babus fake income for scholarships to wards
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Rajouri, December 27
Can the monthly family income of a government officer, whose wife is also a government employee, be less than Rs 9,000.

Surprisingly, there are such cases here in the district where government officials, who have more than one government servants in their family, in connivance with revenue officials have reportedly managed to get income certificates much less than their actual income.

Parents (government employees) of some students belonging to the Scheduled Tribe category seeking admissions to various graduate and postgraduate courses in government and private colleges in or outside the state have reportedly managed to get income certificates much less than their family income and have been able to get government scholarships for their wards.

The scholarship in the form of payment of fees for the course and mess charges in case of hostelers, which is given by the state’s Social Welfare Department, is awarded to students of various categories, including Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), residents of backward areas (RBA), residents of actual line of control (ALC) and other categories.

Whereas the maximum income limit of family of a candidate belonging to the ST category is Rs 1.08 lakh, for SC it is Rs 1lakh and for the majority of other categories it is Rs 44,500. The income certificate is issued by the tehsildar of the area after a field report by patwari and verification by naib tehsildar.

In one such case, a senior health officer posted in Poonch district, whose wife is also a government servant, in connivance with local revenue officials, has reportedly managed a monthly income certificate of Rs 2,500 for getting scholarship meant for ST students for one of his wards.

In another such case, the principal of a Government Higher Secondary School, whose wife is also a government employee, has managed an income certificate of below Rs 9,000 for availing the ST category scholarship for his ward.

A senior officer in the Intelligence Department confirmed that they had received public complaints against 12 government officials, who had reportedly produced wrong income certificates to the office of the district social welfare officer concerned for availing scholarships under various categories for their wards seeking admissions to various professional and degree colleges and universities.

These government officials had managed these income certificates by allegedly bribing the revenue officials. “We are probing the matter”, the officer said.

Though senior officers of the Social Welfare Department declined to comment on the issue, official sources confirmed that such false income certificates were received by the department.

“How can a gazetted government official,whose wife is also a government servant, just have a income of less than Rs 9,000? They are eating the share of poor and deserving needy students”.