AIZAWL, Jan 20 - Aizawl-based corruption watchdog PRISM has demanded a CBI probe into irregularities in Mizoram Youth Commission (MYC) following the discovery that the Commission has sent local students to a fake institution in Kolkata.
�The MYC had committed a number of irregularities in the past. Now, it has surfaced that the institution in Kolkata, to which the Commission sent 32 students, is fake. The State Government must initiate a CBI probe into the irregularities in the MYC,� Prism said in a statement.
Mizoram Government has allegedly sent 32 students to study bachelor�s course in hotel management (BHM) to a fake institution in West Bengal, it said.
One of the students, C Laltlanmawia, who has filed an FIR with the State Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in this regard, said yesterday that students applied for the course as per advertisement issued by Mizoram Building & Other Construction Workers Welfare Board in August, 2014. Thirty-two students were selected to study BHM in Nalanda Institute of Advance Studies (NIAS) in Kolkata, which they later found out to be a fake institution.
�We were sent off on August 29, 2014 at DRDA office in Aizawl, which was addressed by MYC chairman and MLA T Sangkunga,� he said.
Contrary to the advertisements in the institution�s website, the institution did not have a good hostel. We had to buy our own exercise books and had to pay exams fees, he said. �The saddest thing is that we were sent to a fake institution. This has damaged our career,� Laltlanmawia said.
He also rubbished the MYC�s claims that it had no responsibility over this. �The agreement between NIAS and Mizoram Government was signed by Mizoram Building & Other Construction Workers Welfare Board secretary and superintendent of MYC,� he said.
According to Laltlanmawia, the expenditure for the entire course for the 32 students amounting to Rs 128.20 lakh was cleared by Mizoram Government within two months in August-September 2014. �It is truly surprising that the government paid this much amount to a fake institution,� he said.
Laltlanmawia said that the way the Mizoram Building & Other Construction Workers Welfare Board spent Rs 461.75 lakh for sending students to NIAS and other institutions � Emporium Training and Consultancy Pvt Ltd, Kolkata, Best First Step Pvt Ltd Quality Skill Training, Guwahati Training Centre � needs to be investigated.
Laltlanmawia said he had filed an FIR in this regard to the ACB on October 26, 2014, but no action has been taken.
