Mumbai, Aug 4 (PTI) The Maharashtra government has not carried out the security certification of MahaDBT portal since August 2020, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) revealed in its audit report.

It was found that business rules were not properly mapped in the system, which resulted in instances wherein applications were processed though applicants did not upload vital documents such as income and caste certificates, the report said.

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Applications that were approved later were given precedence during bill generation in violation of business rules, it added.

Apart from this, improper mapping of business rules led to excess disbursement of Rs 53.41 crore in scholarship money to institutions/students in the academic years 2018-19 and 2019-20, the report tabled in the Maharashtra Legislature stated.

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Implementation of direct benefit transfer (DBT) in scholarship schemes of Other Backward Bahujan Welfare Department is a major reform initiative of the Central government to ensure better and timely delivery of benefits to people.

The state government launched the MahaDBT system in 2018 as an electronic platform for direct transfer of benefits and subsidies to beneficiaries.

Disbursement of scholarships to students was one of the key schemes to be taken up in the DBT system and the process is online.

A total of Rs 7,227.58 crore was disbursed as scholarships by 10 state government departments from 2018-19 to 2019-20 through the online DBT system, the CAG report said.

Since the disbursement of scholarship through the online mode was the Maharashtra government's pioneering initiative and in view of large disbursements, a performance audit was taken up.

The Other Backward Bahujan Welfare Department, which had the highest expenditure of Rs 2,751.47 crore (38.07 per cent) on scholarships disbursed through DBT, was selected in order to review its implementation in the scholarship scheme.

Two schemes, namely the centrally sponsored post-matric scholarship to Other Backward Classes (OBC) students and state-funded post-matric scholarship to Vimukt Jati Nomadic Tribes (VJNT) students, were taken up for detailed scrutiny in the performance audit.

The disbursal of scholarships was through the Maharashtra State DBT and Services (MahaDBT) portal, developed by Maharashtra Information Technology Corporation Limited (MahaIT), a state-run company.

The CAG in the report urged the state government to ensure that security audit of the application is carried out at specified intervals without fail.

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