ISLAMABAD, Oct 3: The government scheme to provide funds to fresh graduates of poor families in order to launch them into respectable careers is being misused, Dawn has learnt.
Some graduates of the Punjab Vocational Training Institutes (VTIs) tried to cheat the Pakistan Baitul Maal (PBM) of Rs5 million by securing several cheques after submitting applications in fake names or institutions.
The PBM has stopped clearing the cheques after discovering the fraud, but only after 18 of the 244 cheques have been encashed.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had on Sept 16 distributed Rs60 million among 3,000 graduates from the VTIs in Lahore. Each graduate got a cheque of Rs20,000.
PBM officials collected applications from poor students, including women, from eight VTIs in Punjab. Any student who got training from any VTI during the last three to four years can avail the grant.
The eligibility criterion is one cheque for one family which has a monthly income of less than Rs4,000.
Sources said that many students had approached the manager of the NBP Lahore Davis Road branch to complain that their cheques had bounced.
They were informed by the manager that the Punjab PBM director had stopped payments.
When contacted, PBM director Syed Ahmed Nadeem Qadri denied that his office had directed the bank authorities to stop issuing the cheques.
He said that so far over 1,100 cheques had been encashed from the NBP. He, however, confirmed that his office had stopped payment on 244 cheques which had been issued on bogus credentials.
“Of the 244 bogus cheques only 18 have been encashed. Some cheques have been issued on fake names or addresses. In some cases, one student has applied for more than one cheque through various institutions,” he added.
He said it was difficult to identify the institutes whose students violated the merit policy. “In some cases, one student has applied for three to four times with slight changes in name or address,” he said, adding: “We have forwarded a list of suspected students to the bank manager to stop issuance of the cheques to those students.”
He said his office was working out a fresh list of 226 students for the issuance of cheques.
The director said the Baitul Maal authorities had already contacted the suspected students who got more than one cheque for recovery. “They will have to surrender the extra cheques or face legal action,” he added.
