The Union HRD ministry has flagged graft in Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), the Union Government’s flagship scheme to overhaul the higher education in India, reported The Indian Express.
According to the report, RUSA coordinator, B Venkatesh Kumar- Chairperson of Centre for Public Policy and Governance, School of Management and Labour Studies at TISS, has misappropriated fund of 2 Crore rupees while Ishita Royjoint secretary at the HRD Ministry, who is now with Principal Secretary, Fisheries, spent 23 Lakh rupees on her trips and two other children in the name of ‘official work’.
TISS was chosen as a coordinating agency to implement RUSA and Kumar- a professor at the institute was made national coordinator. Kumar submitted handwritten taxi bills of 1.26 crore rupees to justify the scam of 2 crore rupees. He was relieved from the post of RUSA coordinator on July 27, 2019, and after the scam surfaced, the institute served him a show-cause notice in August 2019.
Ishita Roy, a 1991 Kerala batch officer, who was the bureaucrat at HRD and RUSA’s national mission director till July 2019, spent RUSA funds of 23 Lakh rupees at personal family trips abroad. In the last term, the Modi government spent almost 1,500 crore rupees every year on RUSA.
This scam has once again exposed the corruption in academia and bureaucracy. Kumar is very influential academically and he regularly writes in newspapers on reforms in higher education.
The high moral ground taken by the left-liberal establishment remains in front of the camera. In back rooms, they behave as tax evaders, money launderers, sexual predators, sycophants and what not. This establishment is responsible for informing the public, if their personal dealings are full of scams and biases, how it could be expected that they would tell ‘right’ story to populous of the country. The interesting thing is they cry foul of ‘political witch hunt’ when some legal action is taken against them.
The Indian academic establishment is very corrupt, and these people were awarded handsomely by the Congress-led UPA government. The influence of bureaucratic lobby at the time of Congress government is well known.
The academia and bureaucratic establishment remain the same even as the government at the centre has changed. The intellectual establishment- media, writers, and academics- enjoyed the golden period during 10 years of UPA government.
They were offered paid trips to foreign countries, and in the name of autonomy, they were also given the charge to look after the financial aspects of the institutions, and this gave them chance to get involved in rampant corruption and enjoy personal benefits in the name of ‘professional work’.
As veteran journalist Tavleen Singh wrote in India’s Tryst with Destiny, one visit to 10 Janpath (the house of Sonia Gandhi) could change the DNA of journalist. The intellectual establishment enjoyed perks like never before in the 10 years of UPA government. So far, the Modi government has not been able to clean up this deep state, and as evident in this case, the bureaucrats and academics continue to use the official position for personal benefits.