Nearly a week after 60 Dalit students studying in an Odisha engineering college threatened to commit suicide as the Bihar government had allegedly not paid their stipend money to the college, State BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday charged that crores of rupees had been embezzled in the name of Dalit students’ stipend money since long in Bihar.

Demanding a probe, Mr. Modi also apprehended that in the name of educational welfare of Dalit students, a big scam of fake institutions and students was going on in the State SC/ST department in which some powerful people were allegedly involved.

“In the year 2012-13, admission of altogether 60 Dalit students from a lone Nawada district was shown in 12 different engineering institutes and against which a sum of Rs. 1,03,27,000 was paid to these institutions in 2015 but later in an inquiry, the addresses of the students and most of the institutes were found fake,” alleged Mr. Modi. He also gave the names of the institutes and the break-up of the students from different blocks of Nawada district.

“Out of total 60 students from Nawada, 50 had taken admission to different colleges of Dehradun, 1 in Bangalore, 2 in Lehargaga of Punjab and 7 in Bhopal,” said the BJP leader. “This has been the case of just one district of Bihar and one can imagine the volume of the scam of all the 38 districts of the State from the last several years. But, I wonder why not even a single FIR has been lodged against any of the fake institutes or the related officers yet?” asked Mr. Modi, while addressing journalists here.

Mr. Modi, who was Deputy Chief Minister during the NDA regime in the State, charged that on one hand crores of rupees were being swindled in the name of Dalit students’ stipend money, while on the other, the Dalit students were being forced to leave their colleges for want of stipend.

On February 2, at least 60 Dalit students from Bihar, who are studying engineering in Odisha, had threatened to commit suicide after the Bihar government allegedly stopped paying their stipend money to the Rajdhani Engineering College of Bhubaneswar, and the students were forced to leave the institution.

After media outrage, the Nitish Kumar government announced to pay stipend for 30 students and assured that payment to the rest of students would be made to the college after document verification. Under the Dalit Students Stipend Scheme, the Bihar government annually pays Rs. 1.1 lakh for each student to the institute.

“I demand a probe into this Dalit students’ stipend scheme, especially of last 3-4 years, as most of the institutes and name of the students are fake … it is a big scam in which powerful people are involved,” Mr. Modi reiterated.