The Maharashtra State Education Board, Pune, is being criticised for not disbursing funds for the East Higher Primary Scholarships for classes 5 and 8. The examination, which is required to clear for eligibility of scholarship, was held in February 2020.
And despite an announcement made by the board, there has been a delay in awarding scholarships for the past three years. This is frustrating for several parents.
Exams for scholarships are made possible through the Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE), a state-level organisation in India.
After a seven-month wait, the results of the MSCE scholarship exams for the fifth and eighth grades, which were administered on February 16, 2020, were released on October 9, 2020. This also led to resentment among parents.
Concerns about the wait times for scholarship distributions were raised by a number of parents of different learners to the board. Parents claim that their children had high hopes and expectations for this scholarship, however, this doesn't appear to be the reality at this time.
Parents are claiming that despite the results being revealed in October 2020, students received the scholarship certificate barely in June or July 2023, that too in an online format.
For the 2020 MSCE scholarship test, there were about 55000 applications from all over the state. The scholarship examination measures basic learning and numeracy among school pupils enrolled in classes 5 and 8.
Namita Deo, a mother of the scholarship winner, says, “When we applied for the scholarship back in 2020, instructions were given to us parents to open minor accounts in banks where the scholarship funds could be deposited.”
She further added, “Despite the fact that for the last three years, the account has been active, we have not received any funds.”
Is The Security Certification Of MahaDBT Portal The Reason For The Delay In Disbursing Funds?
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) noted in its audit report that the Maharashtra government had neglected to perform the security certification of the MahaDBT portal from August 2020, resulting in major security vulnerabilities in the portal.
Scholarships were awarded through the MahaDBT portal, which Maharashtra Information Technology Corporation Limited (MahaIT) created.
The MahaDBT system processed scholarship applications without necessary documents like income and caste certificates, raising questions about the process's dependability. The report revealed that this was due to a lack of an automated system mapping for document scrutiny.
During the academic years 2018–19 and 2019–20, an astounding INR 53.41 crore in scholarship money was improperly disbursed to organizations and students, according to the audit. According to the study given to the Maharashtra Legislature, this mismatch resulted from the incorrect mapping of business regulations.
As a ground-breaking program for the direct distribution of benefits and subsidies to beneficiaries, the MahaDBT system was introduced in 2018. The online distribution of scholarships to students was one of its essential elements.
According to the CAG report, between 2018-19 and 2019-20, several state government departments distributed INR 7,227.58 crore in scholarships via the online DBT system.
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