Fake firm rides on PM’s Rozgar Yojana, Swachh Bharat to lure gullible women

PUNE: Less than a year after the Maple Group flat fraud was busted after the company started using the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) bait to trap prospective buyers, another company followed suit to offer government jobs under the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana (PMRY), before winding up operations after hoodwinking gullible job-seekers.
Apart from PMRY, the company also used the logos of Swachh Bharat, names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Government of India on their documents sent to the applicants.
To make matters worse, on March 17, the Haveli police station on Sinhgad Road refused to take the complaint of Archana Amol Gawali, who had sniffed a stink. She was one of at least 1,000 women from across the state, who were cheated by the firm. Their complaint was acknowledged only when it was scaled up to Pune’s commissioner of police, Rashmi Shukla.
Gawali (28), a resident of the Dhayari area, told Mirror, “It all started in the first week of January when I came across an advertisement in a Marathi newspaper with a contact number (91457 48697). I called up and the person at the other end, who revealed her name as Sonali Bhosale. On the first day, she said their organisation, Mahila Rozgar Company, is an initiative to empower women by the Modi government. She asked me about my basic information, the district I belonged to and told me to send scanned copy of my educational qualification certificates on their email id (mrcgovt100@gmail.com).”
She dashed off her qualification certificates and immediately received a ‘selection letter’ with the post of supervisor at a government outfit, with asalary of Rs 14,000 per month. “I was asked to first pay Rs 3,000 of which Rs 2,000 would be for training and Rs 1,000 for a laptop and one dual-sim mobile which will be given by their company,” added Gawali.
Bhosale, who was the recruitment coordinator for all these applicants, was operating from Nagpur. The official address of their company’s head office given on the selection letter was — Block 9, 4th floor, B Wing, NMC Complex, Mangawalri Bazar Road, Koradi Colony, Mahila Rojgar Company, Nagpur, Maharashtra, 440001. Bhosale also asked Gawali to spread the word among her friends and relatives as they needed more people for this work.
Another applicant Reshma Londhe said, “I was suspicious right at the start and asked Bhosale how an appointment can be made without taking any interview or a meeting in person. As I asked her directly about this, she told me that training will be given as the Modi government has fast-tracked this project. She had told us that we will get all government facilities, with second and fourth Saturdays as holidays, and six hours of work daily.”
In February, most of the applicants who contacted Bhosale started getting selection letters on their email ids. Also, an agreement copy on the stamp paper of Rs 500 was sent to each and every applicant after paying Rs 3,000 in the company’s bank accounts. “Bhosale said they need 120 supervisors in each taluka which will be divided in three teams of 40 each,” said another applicant, Rajani Nevrekar.
From March 15, all the applicants realised that they were cheated as their phone calls were not being received by Bhosale or any other person from the company. “We were initially told that the training was slotted for February 28 in Pune, which was eventually pushed to March 15, since recruitment was still going on. On the morning of March 14, we got the last call from Bhosale saying that tomorrow is the training in one of the zilla parishad schools in Pune and that a bus service will be provided. As we didn’t get any confirmation about the place for training, we started calling her back on the evening of March 14. She did not pick up our calls and since then her phone was switched off,” said Gawali.
On March 17, Gawali went to the Haveli police station to complain but the officers, who did not entertain them. Finally, after discussing the issue with some other applicants, they submitted a written complaint to the police commissioner and Pune district collector on April 3.
When contacted, police commissioner Shukla said, “I will check their complaint in detail, as how exactly they have been cheated by this company. I will also verify whether it is a fake or government company that was recruiting people across the state. Accordingly, the case can go to our economic offence crime-related officers.”
On this issue, state women and child development minister Pankaja Munde said, “If the complaint was received yesterday, I will check the same right away. I am sure that some people linked to private firms are behind this. Only after a detailed inquiry, can I speak about this conclusively.”