STATE has been hitting the headlines for wrong reasons after VYAPAM, now the Nursing Scam as the Opposition Congress party apprehended has grabbed the lime light. Not only the scale of corruption but importantly the involvement also prompted investigators who have turned to scamsters, as four CBI officers, including a Deputy Superintendent-rank officer, have been named in the FIR and three have been arrested in the bribery case, has shocked the people. And now new team constituted by the agency will look in to the matter. On the other side, the future of around 1.5 lakh nursing students in the State hangs in the balance amidst court orders and an ongoing CBI investigation. Although recently, the Madhya Pradesh High Court directed that students of 56 nursing colleges, who have obtained stay on probe from Supreme Court allowed to appear in the exam. But the future of rest of lakhs of students are also at stake.

 

The Opposition to target the Mohan Yadav-led BJP government. Congress’ Hemant Katare, Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, has said a Supreme Courtmonitored probe was required. “We have lost faith in the CBI. The agency is functioning as a tool of the BJP. We will question the Government in the Assembly, but if it does not reply convincingly, we will hit the streets.” Government had changed but nothing has been done by our honourable public representatives whether in or outside the Government.

 

The CBI has searched 31 locations across Madhya Pradesh and Jaipur and found over Rs 2.3 crores in cash, 4 gold bars and incriminating documents. Rahul Raj, it is alleged, would co-ordinate with middlemen and share schedule of CBI inspections, fix and collect bribe amounts, and provide suitability report. On other side, Chief Minister on this issue Mohan Yadav had said the government “has to learn from past mistakes” and added he had issued several directions to ensure such irregularities do not happen. He had refused to elaborate, saying that the matter is sub-judice. A new team from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is to take over the investigation into nursing colleges scam after members of the agency’s earlier team allegedly became a part of it. The Enforcement Directorate can register a separate case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against the officers. Also, the colleges tagged “suitable” earlier could be re-examined. 

 

 Chronology of the scam: 

 

THE State Nursing Council cancelled the affiliation of 19 colleges. investigation last year found gross irregularities in the functioning of nursing colleges in the State. Top officials in the Health Education Department were found running nursing colleges that did not even have a campus. Some “colleges” were found running from a few rooms. In the aftermath of the revelations, following a high court order, the CBI investigation started a probe into the functioning of 670 colleges registered in 2020- 21. In its report on 308 nursing colleges, the CBI tagged 169 colleges “fit”, 66 “unfit” and 73 “deficient”. But there were questions. A government college in Rewa was declared “unfit”. On the other hand, a college that was tagged “fit” had the address of a rented building from which a school was running. It is alleged that CBI officers were providing “fit” tags in exchange for bribes. The agency’s team would charge between ? 2 lakh and ? 10 lakh to tag an “unfit” college “fit”. The investigation has revealed that the bribery cartel functioned through Rajasthan. A middleman would send the bribes to Jaipur and it would then be routed to a CBI officer, the probe has found. CBI officers Rahul Raj, Sushil Kumar Majoka and Rishi Kant Asathe have been arrested. Deputy SP Ashish Prasad is also an accused.

 

The CBI has searched 31 locations across Madhya Pradesh and Jaipur and found over Rs 2.3 crore in cash, 4 gold bars and incriminating documents. Rahul Raj, it is alleged, would co-ordinate with middlemen and share schedule of CBI inspections, fix and collect bribe amounts, and provide suitability report. He was caught red-handed while accepting Rs 10 lakh as bribe, it is learnt. Rahul Raj has now been terminated from service. Code words such as “Chaach Glass:, “Achar Ki Barni” and “Kilo Aam” were used to relay messages about bribe amounts and their collection, it is learnt. The gross irregularities coming to the fore in the functioning of nursing colleges in the state are playing out against the backdrop of the changes in the state government’s guidelines for such institutions earlier this year. Earlier, such a college could only function if it had an area of at least 23,000 square feet. This minimum area requirement was reduced to 8,000 square feet.

 

Also, the 10:1 ratio of assistant professor and students was tweaked to 20:1. The minimum area for a nursing lab was revised from 1500 square metres to 900 metres. investigation had earlier found that many nursing colleges were running without proper faculty or infrastructure. One faculty member was found teaching in at least 10 colleges across three cities as principal in some and associate professor in others. It was also found colleges that have no faculty hand out “certificates”. Heavy affected with the corruption, the future of state, lakhs of students are wondering clueless and uncertainty is looming over their careers.