Officer, wardens gobble up funds meant for hostel students’ food

The DVAC has registered a case against five persons including a minority welfare official and hostel wardens for allegedly swindling approximately over Rs 65 lakh by a bogus claim in buying dietary items, provisions, meat etc for government MBC and BC hostel students in Tiruvannamalai in 2019.

The accused are AN Lavanya, District Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare officer, Tiruvannamalai; Maheshwaran, Assistant Accounts Officer, DBCW Office; Dharmalingam, Tutor Cum Warden, Govt. College (MBC) Boys Hostel, Cheyyar; Balaji, Hostel Warden, Govt. Students Hostel (BC), Tiruvannamalai; and K Mangala Merry, Hostel Matron, Govt. Arts College Girls Hostel (BC), Cheyyar, Tiruvannamalai. They had allegedly misappropriated the Government fund by preparing false vouchers in February and July 2019.

In Tamil Nadu, there are 973 government hostels for Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and Minorities students throughout the State.

The accused persons had used computer printouts and xerox of invoice model and prepared invoice-cum-receipts by filling up the details of groceries and price, and include the fictitious name of grocery shop and also signed in the name of a fictitious person as if groceries were supplied by them to believe that the document was made by a real person and sent the same to the DBCMWO’s for sanction of the fund.

The first two suspects, knowing that the other three suspects had placed invoice-cum-receipt by violating the guidelines, cleared all the bills dishonestly. 

The wardens allegedly made incorrect records in the attendance register by marking as if all students were present irrespective of their actual availability to hike the claim for funds, for the non-present students, to misappropriate the amount.

On credible information, it came to knowledge that the suspects colluded for misappropriating government money, committed forgery for falsification of accounts, made false entries in the stock register, prepared bogus bills and used it as genuine, thereby claiming Rs 1.37 crore from the government exchequer of which nearly 50 per cent of the claim is bogus, the DVAC said.