Nagpur: A massive scam has come to light in the education department of Eastern Vidarbha, where 540 fake “Shalarth” IDs were used to siphon off teacher salaries for several years. Shockingly, many of the names attached to these IDs do not even exist.
The scam, believed to be worth around ₹5400 crore, was officially reported to the police by the Education Department on March 12, leading to an ongoing investigation that could see more arrests soon.
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24 April 2025
ACP Lohit Matani, who is leading the probe, revealed that salary payments had been disbursed using these fake IDs since 2019. “We have requested server data from NIC and MahaIT for deeper analysis,” he added.
Initial investigations point toward Ulhas Narad, Deputy Director of Education, whose office was reportedly central to the Shalarth ID generation process. IP logs of computers and mobile devices from his office are being cross-verified with login records.
In many cases, the so-called “teachers” did not even exist, yet received salaries for years. Several of these IDs were reportedly generated outside of official education department systems, suggesting a deeper level of corruption and coordination.
The process for generating school salary IDs involves multiple approval steps—from school to education department’s payroll team. The fact that hundreds of fake entries bypassed all checkpoints has raised serious questions about systemic failure and internal collusion.
Further arrests and disciplinary action against responsible school and department staff are expected soon.
