New Delhi: Three years after the Union government froze its flagship minority scholarship schemes citing alleged fraud involving fake schools, ghost beneficiaries and siphoned funds, investigations into such cases remain delayed with no clear timeline for when the schemes will be revived, The Print reported.The parliamentary standing committee, led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP P.C. Mohan, on social justice and empowerment on Friday (March 13) flagged concerns over continued budget cuts, under-utilisation of funds and implementation gaps in welfare schemes for minorities.The panel stated that the pre-matric and post-matric scholarship schemes for minority students have not been approved beyond 2021-22, and scholarships have not been disbursed from 2022-23 onwards due to “gross irregularities”.The committee also said that withholding the scheme because of recovery of Rs 144 crore allegedly embezzled by institutions amounts to “injustice to minority students for no fault of theirs”.The panel urged the ministry to implement the schemes in states where irregularities were minimal so that minority students are not deprived of scholarship funds for education.The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), an independent, economic policy research think tank, had in 2023 found that at least 830 minority institutions registered with the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) were either fake or non-operational, recording an estimated loss of Rs 144.33 crore towards the scholarship schemes.The issue first surfaced in November 2020, when media reports said scholarship funds were being siphoned by a nexus of bank staff, middlemen, school employees and government officials. The Ministry of Minority Affairs had then asked five states – Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Punjab – to investigate. Following the NCAER findings, the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).However, very little has progressed since then.A total of 6,055 institutes reported to respective state governments for verification in February 2025, but physical inspections have been completed in 5,046 cases, whereas 1,009 are still pending, according to the committee report. Of the ones inspected, 609 have been confirmed as fake or partially fake.As many as 193 FIRs have been lodged across states, 33 departmental proceedings have been initiated, and a sum of around Rs 29 lakh has been recovered.However, The Print reports that this recovery figure relates to action on the portal-flagged pool. What has been recovered against the 830 institutes in the original NCAER sample remains unaccounted for in the committee’s report, it stated.The Wire has previously reported on how despite the Ministry of Minority Affairs appearing to have received a higher allocation in this year’s Union budget, over the years, the government’s approach to this ministry’s funding has been marked by a lack of transparency and consistency.In 2025-26, the merit-cum-means scholarship was allocated Rs 7.34 crore. This year, the allocation has been reduced to just Rs 0.06 crore, effectively dismantling the scheme itself.In 2024-25, Rs 33.80 crore was allocated to the scheme, later revised down to Rs 19.41 crore, with actual expenditure amounting to just Rs 3.51 crore. By comparison, in 2014-15, the same scholarship received a budgetary allocation of Rs 302 crore, Rs 317 crore was released, and expenditure rose to Rs 381.38 crore.Similarly, the Maulana Azad National Fellowship, a scheme to address the acute underrepresentation of minorities – particularly Muslims – in higher education, was officially discontinued from the 2022-23 academic year, with assurances that students already selected would continue to receive funding until the completion of their tenure.However, minority students have consistently complained that payments have either stopped altogether or are being released after prolonged and unexplained delays.The gap between these figures reflects a clear shift in policy intent.