Bhagalpur Srijan NGO Scam: The Twist and Turns in the Case

Mumbai: The latest update on Srijan Scam comes out when Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar recommended a CBI inquiry on Thursday as presently the enquiry is under the Special Investigation Team (SIT). The pressure was made by the opposition as Nitish Kumar has been repeatedly been claiming zero tolerance against corruption. Last Monday three more persons got arrested in connection with the scam, making it 11 in number. It was said by BJP and JDU that it is just a useless effort to embarrass Nitish Kumar Government by taking the name of present Deputy Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Modi. RJD Supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav and his son Tejashwi Yadav accused Nitish Kumar of his biased behaviour on corruption even after knowing the direct involvement of Shushil Kumar Modi in the scam who was the Finance Minister when “crores were looted from people”. Tejashwo was not allowed to conduct a meeting in Bhagalpur district which adds fuel to the fire.

Now the question comes in mind is what is the scam all about : What is Srijan NGO?

As every other Government talk about upliftment of women in all the strata of the society. So was done by the Srijan NGO, established in the year 1996 by Manorama Devi in order to give employment to women. The NGO carried out works in the form of cottage industries initially manufacturing pickles and wafers but later, on getting funds on a district level it took the shape of a small scale industry manufacturing different food materials.

What is the scam?

The scam came out in the year 2009 when Manorama Devi died. It was said that the scam is about of 502 cr, in which money allocated for urban development was deposited to the account of Srijan NGO. The funds were, later, used by big fishes for their profit purposes like real estate business and other. It was stated by the reports that the public money kept in the accounts of state government and district administration, was diverted to Srijan’s bank accounts, its employees and bank officials. As per the reports, her son Amit Kumar and daughter-in-law Priya Kumar, secretary of NGO Srijan Mahila Sahyog Samiti Limited, are on the run.

What Now?

Inspector-general of police (IG), economic offence unit (EOU), Jitendra Singh Gangwar, heading the probe, said “We have seized the laptop using the fake banking software, printer, pen drives and purported copies of bank e-statements. Nine people have been arrested.”

The investigating agencies were trying to trace the NGO’s activity beyond Bhagalpur which raises the scam to 700cr.

“The NGO also offered loans to villagers at an exorbitant rate of interest. This ensured good returns though it also had an element of risk in terms of bad debt,” said Gangwar. Nine FIRs been registered so far on the basis of the fact that the scam continued for seven years between 2007-2014 as per different departments’ audit.

According to Gangwar, eight bank accounts with Bank of Baroda and The Indian Bank have been discovered so far.  Whereas over 24 accounts are suspected of used in the scam which are tried to be ascertained by the investigation team.

“We detected that in 2012-13, the NGO withdrew Rs 150 crore from its Bhagalpur account and transferred it to its Saharsa account two years later. As of now, we do not know why the money was transferred,” he added.

Now RJD is all set to sack Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi by bringing out the scam in the light.