Ranchi, Nov 20: The Jharkhand BJP on Thursday accused the state’s Education Department of large-scale corruption, alleging that in the past two years it colluded with private firm MKS Enterprise to carry out a ₹75-crore scam linked to Aadhaar enrolment and biometric updates of schoolchildren.
Addressing a press conference here, BJP spokesperson Ajay Shah said that Jharkhand is facing widespread loot and that even students are being exploited by the government.
Sah claimed that in March 2023, the Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) issued a tender to select an agency for Aadhaar enrolment and biometric updates of school students. Later, MKS Enterprise was awarded this contract.
According to Sah, the original tender document, the work order issued to the agency, three official letters from the JEPC Director and information obtained through RTI clearly shows that students were not supposed to be charged any fee for Aadhaar enrolment or updates. The Union Government was supposed to pay ₹50 per student to JEPC, which in turn was required to pay the selected agency.
However, Sah alleged that despite these rules, MKS Enterprise carried out large-scale illegal collections inside schools under the protection of JEPC. Citing digital payment records, he claimed that at 250 Block Resource Centres, around ₹2,000 was collected daily, amounting to roughly ₹36 crore taken illegally from students.
He further alleged that an equivalent amount was also billed to the Central Government in the name of Aadhaar work, effectively doubling the scam. In addition, the agency allegedly collected around ₹2.5 crore from nearly 500 Aadhaar supervisors by calling it “security money”. Adding all these figures, Sah said the total scam reaches approximately ₹75 crore.
Meanwhile, Sah further accused JEPC and the agency of exploiting Aadhaar supervisors. According to him, supervisors were first asked to pay ₹50,000 each to secure their jobs. Later, when they demanded their unpaid salaries, they were threatened and slapped with penalties running into lakhs of rupees.
Sah added that MKS Enterprise has been involved in fake Aadhaar activities in Bihar and West Bengal as well, and that the entire matter is linked to large-scale money laundering.
