The Quint’s expose unravels the money trail in the Vyapam scam. The trail starts with the students looking for out-of-turn admissions who fork out money to middlemen, who in turn pay their political bosses. In this final piece of the three-part investigation, we reveal that the going rate for a college seat was anywhere between Rs 10-20 lakh, and Rs 40-50 lakh for low-level government job.
- Students paid Rs 10-20 lakh
- Government job-seekers Rs 40-50 lakh
Excel sheets maintained by the scamsters also show the amount of bribe they took from students who sought admission to medical and engineering colleges in Madhya Pradesh.
The bribe each of student paid to the kingpins ranged between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. For instance, Chitrangana Jain, whose pre-medical entrance test was written by an impersonator, allegedly paid Rs 20 lakh to a “fixer” described in Mahindra’s records as “Manish”. Another MBBS aspirant Disha Sethiya allegedly paid an agent called Pradeep Raghuvanshi Rs 10 lakh. Of course it was not Disha who took the pre-medical entrance test; someone else impersonating as Disha went wrote her exam.
Vyapam scam kingpins operated at two levels: one group skimmed students and their parents, while another group which included the state BJP’s education cell chief and mine owner Sudhir Sharma, former minister Lakshmikant Sharma’s personal secretary O P Shukla, RSS leader Dr Ajay Shankar Mehta, who headed the Jan Abhiyan Parishad, and Dhanraj Yadav, an officer on special duty on Governor Ram Naresh Yadav’s staff allegedly took hefty bribes ranging between Rs 40 lakh to Rs 50 lakh to fix lower level state government jobs.
Surely the chief minister cannot feign ignorance about serious allegations that some of his cabinet ministers have been direct and indirect beneficiaries of the Vyapam scam. Shivraj is today in a fix because he cannot name his close relatives who too partook large amounts as bribe.
—Dr Anand Rai, whistleblower
Part One of the investigation looks at how the Vyapam scam has dwarfed all other scams.
Part Two of the investigation looks at how the money trail in the scam was revealed in Excel documents by at least one of the accused.
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