3000 students cheated in the name of skill development in Gujarat

Ahmedabad : After fraudsters cheated 3,670 people under the guise of the government’s popular ‘Beti Bachao’ programme in Gujarat in March, another economic fraud in the name of a government scheme has come to light in Banaskantha.

Seven people from Rajasthan allegedly duped more than 3,015 students under the guise of a skill development programme being run under the government’s CSR scheme. The entire scheme, where the students had to pay an amount to learn certain skills after which they would be given some amount of money, was a sham, said police officials.

A complaint was filed on Saturday against Bhupendra Ramsingh Yadav, resident of Jaipur, his wife Poonam Yadav, Ramkumar Ramsingh Yadav, Deepak Kumar and three members of Business Council of India (BCI).

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They are Ashok Kumar Mahur, the GM of BCI, Bijendra Gothwal, the national coordinator of BCI and Mulsi Solanki, the state coordinator of BCI, all residents of Jaipur.

According to police officials, the complaint filed by Palanpur resident Pankajkumar Durgashankar Sharma, who is the head of the CS Foundation and Charitable Trust, the accused spoke to him about a CSR initiative and lured him to start vocational training centres in different cities where 3,015 students were enrolled.

The accused from January 1, 2018 to August 31, 2019, allegedly took fees worth Rs 4.38 crore, deposits worth Rs 6.28 crore and as part of organisation payout and student scholarship, took Rs 4,000 from each student apart from other amounts over time, totalling Rs 13.80 crore.

Additionally, under the ‘free’ scheme, the accused took another Rs 18.17 lakh, bringing the total amount collected from investors and students to a whopping Rs 13.98 crore over 20 months from January 2018 to the end of August 2019.

A police statement said that when it came to giving back the payout money to Sharma’s institution, the accused sent a forged cheque worth Rs 6.28 crore to him which was returned by the bank. It was then that the complaint was filed.

The FIR for fraud was filed under sections 406, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471 and 114 of the IPC at Palanpur West police station and the police are currently attempting to track them down and place the accused under arrest.  RK Solanki of Palanpur West police station was unavailable for comment.

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