Action initiated against officials in Rs 22-cr scam

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 21

The Directorate of Technical Education and Industrial Training has initiated departmental action against officials for their alleged involvement in irregular payments of Rs 22 crore to private vocational training providers (VTP) imparting modular employable skills to job seekers.

The Punjab Vigilance Bureau, in its report to the directorate nearly three months ago, had pointed out that the VTP centres were registered without the mandatory verification of their infrastructure. Also, the qualifications of beneficiary students were not authenticated by the officials concerned before releasing the payment for the training imparted under short-term employable skill courses run between April 2012 and May 2014.

While the Vigilance had pointed towards excess payment of Rs 3 crore to the centres, Rs 18 crore of the centres was still pending with the department.

The department has issued a show-cause notice to Harjeet Singh, a dealing assistant. The action pertains to eight VTP centres that were registered without clearance from the Director, Technical Education. Similar action has been taken against others officials named in the vigilance report. They are Harpal Singh, Deputy Director, Daljinder Singh, Additional Director, Maninderpal Singh, Superintendent, and Ranjana Kaushik, a data entry operator.

Sources said in similar cases of loss of revenue to the state exchequer, the department lodged an FIR, but in this case only a show-cause notice under Section 10 of the Punjab Civil Services 1970 (Punishment and Appeal) had been issued and it would attract only minor penalty.