Bihar Mahadalit Vikas Mission scam: Second FIR lodged

Patna: The Vigilance Investigation Bureau has registered second FIR against suspended IAS officer S M Raju for his alleged involvement in Bihar Mahadalit Vikas Mission scam in which approximately Rs 7.3 crore had been wrongly disbursed to British Lingua in the name of teaching spoken English to Mahadalit youths in the state.
Apart from Raju, British Lingua (a unit of Birbal Academy and Publication Pvt Ltd) director Birbal Jha, then mission directors and retired IAS officers Raghvendra Jha and Rajnarayan Lal, Ramashish Paswan, mission's then OSD Anil Kumar Sinha (now retired), mission's then coordinator Shashi Bhushan Singh, then assistant directors Harendra Kumar Srivastava and Birendra Chaudhary and the then mission's state project officer Debjani Kar have also been made accused in FIR.Vigilance sources said at least Rs 7.3 crore was disbursed to British Lingua between 2012-13 and 2015-16.
"Altogether 40 students were supposed to be there in one batch. However, in course of investigation, it surfaced that same name was entered in a batch multiple times and in other batches too," sources said, adding the mission claimed altogether 14,826 youths were trained in spoken English.
"Initial work order as pilot project for British Lingua was for six districts. It didn't fulfil the terms and conditions, but even then the mission entered into contract with British Lingua to expand the project in 22 more districts," the sources added.
The VIB had lodged first FIR in the case on October 23, 2017, in which IAS officer Ravi Manubhai Pramar and Raju were named as accused.