Early Times Report
Doda, Jan 30: A building owner, whose premises was hired by the companies running Prime Minister’s Khaushal Yojana in Doda District has alleged that these units have turned into a Mafia and are swindling the government money.
Ghulam Nabi, who had rented out his building to an Indore based company Vishwamitra to run centrally sponsored scheme to develop skills of the youth while talking to a news channel said, “In 2018 representatives of the company approached me and requested to rent out my building to them for running a scheme to provide skills to youth. The rent was fixed at Rs 50,000 per month and I was told to provide entire infrastructure. I rented out four halls and six bathrooms to the company.”
He said, “After they started operations they kept on telling me that my rent will be paid and for one year they didn’t pay a single penny. One fine day they just disappeared from the scene.”
Ghulam Nabi said, “After many efforts I tracked a few officials of the company and they assured me that the rent will be paid.
After that Covid happened and everything came to a standstill.”
He said, “After the Covid subsided they returned and told me that they want to restart the operations. At that point of time out of Rs 8lakhs they transferred Rs 2lakhs into my account and promised to clear rest of the amount also.”
Ghulam Nabi said, >Says it’s a big scam needs to be probed
>Out of Rs 12 lakh I was paid only Rs 2 lakh as rent
>Trainers, students not given single penny
> No one paying heed towards my representations
He said, “Till May 2021, they kept on enrolling the youth for various training programmes. But after that lockdown returned and they disappeared again without paying any rent.”
Ghulma Nabi alleged that the people running these courses didn’t pay any money to the trainers they had hired nor paid any stipend to the students. “Based on my experience I have realized that they were running a Mafia under Skill India scheme, which the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched with an intention to empower the youth across the country. But it seems that money is not reaching the people whom it’s meant for and it’s a big scandal which needs to be investigated. The people who were running the Centre in my building were running two more centers in Udhampur and Ramban. They just shuffled the students from one centre to another to withdraw funds on their name.”
Ghulam Nabi said that he has sent several representations to the concerned authorities but has not received any reply. “I had met Deputy Commissioner Doda and he had forwarded my representation to the ministry. But I was told by the concerned officials that I have to sort out the issue of rent with the company that had hired my premises.” | 