Over 1000 UP Madarsas Getting Govt Funds Only On Paper

By Sufia Naaz / Lucknow

The Samajwadi Party (SP) government in Uttar Pradesh, which has pulled all stops for Muslim votes ahead of the general elections, is in for a huge embarrassment.

The state ’s Minority Welfare Department found that there were 1018 fake government-aided madrasas in the state. This means that not just teachers and computers meant for minority education did not exist, the institutions themselves only on paper.
For hundreds of thousands of Muslim children in UP, madrasas run with government funds are the only source of learning. Both central and state governments earmark hundreds of crores of rupees in their budgets every year to fund scholarships, pay for teachers and modernization programmes for recognized madrasas.

UP by and far hosts the largest number of such institutions numbering close to 10,000.

But to everyone ’s shock, the Minority Welfare Department has stumbled upon a huge scam involving madrasas receiving government funding.

While identifying madrasas for a modernisation scheme run by the central government, the department realised that there are over a 1000 such institutions in the state receiving government grants that do not even exist.

“A survey was being conducted to identify madrasas for the modernisation programme when we found out that 1018 of them receiving government grant either ceased to exist or were not there from inception. We are conducting an inquiry to find out where things went wrong. Involvement of officers concerned, acts of omission or commission cannot be ruled out,” said Devesh Chaturvedi, secretary, UP Department for Minority Welfare.

The anomalies came to the notice when officials conducting a survey on madrasas getting modernisation funds found a list of 1000 madrasas in Jhansi.

Alarmed, when they conducted door to door check, the first six madrasas turned out to be bogus.

The department then conducted a preliminary investigation which revealed that 1018 madrasas across the state existed only on paper.

Out of these, 304 were found in Meerut, 107 in Gonda, 103 in Balrampur and four in state capital Lucknow.

Naturally, the opposition is gunning for Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Minorities Welfare Minister Azam Khan who advocated allocation of huge funds for minority education of which a sizeable chunk was swindled.

“The government’s policy of Muslim appeasement is responsible for this outcome. One hundred and eighteen madrasas have been found to be fake right under the government’s nose and it still does not want to take any action. They want to shield the culprits,€ said state BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak.

“The central government gives huge funds to the state for minority welfare. It’s sad that a large chunk of it is being siphoned off. The government should conduct a thorough inquiry and the culprits should be brought to book,” said Congress spokesman Amarnath Agarwal.

The Minority Welfare Department at the moment does not reveal the estimate of actual funds swindled off by the owners of such fake madarsas but the budgetary allocation for madrasas and promotional schemes in education being run for Muslims in the state itself shows the gravity of the scam.

The UP government in its 2013-14 budget has allocated Rs. 777 crores for scholarships to Muslim students and Rs.200 crore has been allocated to fund madrasas. Another Rs.315 crore has been ear marked exclusively for madrasas teaching Arabic.

Since these nonexistent madrasas were also being granted funds to give away scholarships besides funds for teachers’ salaries and modernisation, the numbers involved in the scam can well be imagined.

According to government norms, an assistance of Rs.1 lakh is given to madrasas imparting education up to the high school level while Rs.50,000 is given for developing a library for students.

Government funds can also be utilised to develop a computer or a science lab for which separate assistance is given. No wonder madrasas which are not government recognised and funded stand to lose.

“It saddens me that such huge funds have been misappropriated in the name of madrasas. If these funds were given to us, we could have improved the infrastructure. At the moment, we run it through donations only,” said Naseem Kausar, a madrasa teacher.

Allocation of such huge funds, totaling almost to Rs.1,300 crore for minority education was seen as a game-changer by the SP government ahead of the 2014 elections.

But with close to 10,000 madrasas under the purview of this scheme which naturally stand to lose after this scam, the government is keeping its fingers crossed and doing its bit to play down the scandal.