GUWAHATI: The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has demanded that the State government must hand over the Rs 500-crore scam in the minority scholarship scheme across Assam to the CBI.
The APCC staged a protest in front of Rajiv Bhawan on Thursday and sought nothing short of a CBI inquiry into the scam. The Opposition has also sought immediate resignations of State Minority Minister Ranjit Dutta and Assam Minority Development Board (AMDB) Chairman Muminul Aowal.
APCC's minority department chairman Salman Khan said, "It is one of the big scams in the history of Assam, involving approximately Rs. 500 core. There are lots of people involved, including some school headmasters, officials of the School Inspector's offices, nodal officers, bank staff, CSP (Customer Service Point) vendors and others in various districts in the State. The Chief Minister is fully aware of the facts, but till today he has not taken any action. That the Chief Minister and the State BJP leadership are remaining silent over the issue indicate that some leaders from the party are also involved in the scam."
Khan said, "The State government is not taking any suo-moto action against the wrongdoers. If the government doesn't hand over the inquiry into the scam to the CBI, we'll take our protest to the districts and blocks."
The issue came to the fore when AMDB Chairman Muminul Aowal recently met Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and handed over a letter giving details of corruption in the disbursal of 'merit-cum-means', 'post-matric', and 'pre-matric' scholarships among minority students during the last four years in the State. Aowal also told the Chief Minister that even though a number of cases had been filed in various police stations in the State on the alleged corruption in the scholarship scheme, the investigation was not progressing, and that compelled him to seek the Chief Minister's intervention.
The Chief Minister asked Aowal to form a special group to investigate the alleged corruption charges.
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