NEW DELHI: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by Congress MP K C Venugopal, on Thursday, initiated a privilege motion against chief secretaries of six states for failing to attend the crucial meeting examining irregularities in the disbursement of pre-matric and post-matric scholarships for Scheduled Caste (SC) students.
Sources said that Venugopal met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and apprised him of their absence and the PAC’s decision to seek privilege action against them.
The six states are Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Odisha, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The committee met to take oral evidence from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the six state governments on a CAG report on lapses in implementing pre-matric and post-matric scholarship schemes for SC students.
Sources said that although Uttar Pradesh and Odisha sent directors of the concerned departments, the chairman declined to hear them, insisting that the chief secretaries attend in person. Venugopal also directed the ministry to submit an action-taken note on the audit findings within a month.
Pointing out that the Centre had provided Rs 30,234 crore for the pre-matric and post-matric schemes during 2017–24, Venugopal questioned the ministry’s repeated explanation that state governments and UTs were responsible for implementation.
It sought the names of officers and units responsible for monitoring each state, along with details of field inspections conducted over the past three years.
Questioning the ministry’s claim that Aadhaar-based payments had helped weed out dummy beneficiaries, the committee cited payments of Rs 10.98 crore to 990 beneficiaries through just 477 bank accounts in Odisha.
It also flagged mismatches in Haryana and ED findings that institutions in Uttar Pradesh held students’ payment bank kits and pre-signed cheque books.
The committee also sought clarity on the approval under which the scheme continued in 2026–27 and the status of proposals to raise the parental income ceiling to Rs 4.5 lakh, cap tuition fees, and revise the funding pattern. It asked whether a fee cap could reduce assistance to eligible students pursuing expensive professional courses.
The committee also sought records of social audits, annual third-party evaluations and institutional self-audit reports promised when the Cabinet approved Rs 59,048 crore for the post-matric scheme in 2020.
The chairman also questioned the sharp fall in beneficiaries after introducing direct benefit transfer. Post-matric beneficiaries fell from 50.16 lakh in 2020–21 to 30.26 lakh in 2021–22, while pre-matric coverage reduced from 32.38 lakh to 11.34 lakh in 2022–23.
Members asked how many students had been found ineligible and how many had been excluded because of Aadhaar-linking or bank-account failures.
Among the most serious findings examined were payments in Odisha, where 990 beneficiaries received Rs 10.98 crore through just 477 bank accounts. The committee sought account holders' identities, details of any links to institutions or agents, and information on FIRs and recoveries.
It also questioned how an ITI that registered five students could receive scholarships for 20.
Uttar Pradesh faced questions over delayed payments to 5,41,170 post-matric students during 2017–21, including 57,098 paid after three years and 206 after four. The chairman sought the current backlog and action on duplicate caste certificates, as well as an institute in Jhansi that the audit had reported as non-existent.
In Karnataka, the chairman pointed to fluctuations in spending, the decline in its central share, and the need to verify institutions on its own scholarship portal.
Punjab was asked why Rs 330.32 crore remained unspent at the end of 2020–21 while Rs 231.48 crore in post-matric scholarships was awaiting disbursement. The committee also sought explanations for contradictory expenditure and beneficiary figures.
Questions were raised on Bihar’s records on no post-matric expenditure for three consecutive years, from 2019–20 to 2021–22. Madhya Pradesh was asked why pre-Matric coverage fell from 3.55 lakh students in 2021–22 to zero reported expenditure and beneficiaries in the following two years.