Bhubaneswar, Oct 18: The Economic Offences wing (EOW) has arrested two persons in connection with multi-state ‘scholarship fraud’ and ‘solar equipment’ fraud.
The accused identified as Nishant Prakash Jaiswal and Amar Danish, the respective State Field Officer and Project In-Charge of Vastav India Trust for Odisha were arrested from Jharkhand on Tuesday.
The case is the outcome of an enquiry conducted on a petition of Sebati Mahanta and others against Vastav India Trust. The allegation was against the President, Secretary, CMD and project in-charge of “Vastav India Trust” for duping the public and parents on the pretext of selling and supplying LED bulbs in their solar awareness program and giving prematric scholarship to the students in their ‘Chuuloo Aasman’ program to the tune of Rs 4 crore . Subsequently, they disappeared by closing down their offices.
The ‘Vastav India Trust’ registered with Sub-Registrar, Ranchi, Jharkhand, opened an office at Bomikhal, Bhubaneswar during March, 2022. The arrested accused persons namely Amar Danish and Nishant Prakash Jaiswal being the respective Project In-Charge and State Field of the said Trust, in connivance with others launched two programmes on ‘solar awareness’ and ‘pre-matric scholarship’ namely “Chuuloo Aasman”. Under solar awareness programme, they used to collect Rs1650 in cash from each applicant as member fee with assurance to supply them with LED bulbs.
The trust was inducing the gullible parents and general public in the name of social welfare program and awareness. In order to facilitate its fraudulent activities, they had appointed block coordinators and other officials in the districts like Sundargarh, Bhadrak, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Nayagarh, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bolangir, Dhenkanal etc. The trust has no authority to collect the deposits. The field of operation of the Trust spreads over in States like Odisha, Jharkhand, Delhi and Bihar.
