Another Arrest In Multi-Crore Job Racket Operating In 17 States, Including Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (E)W), Bhubaneswar, has arrested another accused, Jairam Tiwari, in the alleged multi-crore job fraud case operating in at least 17 states.

A native of Bihar, he is the main associate of Dharmapal Singh, the mastermind of the racket being run under the name of ‘Gramin Rojgar Kalyan Sansthan’ (GRKS) with registered offices in New Delhi and other cities like Mumbai, Bhopal and Dehradun. A website resembling a government website was developed and application fees amounting to crores of rupees deposited by gullible job seekers were misappropriated.

According to an EOW release, Jiaram told the investigators of having received and misappropriated Rs.35,83,000 from the account of ‘GRKS’. He was also the co-producer of a film produced by Dharmapal from the amount received through fake advertisements.

Dharmapal was arrested from Hathua in Bihar on February 15.

The accused used to invite applications for various jobs like district and block coordinator, computer operator and block surveyor prescribing the educational qualification and the remuneration for the individual posts. The advertisements were published on website www.grks.org and the job seekers were required to submit their applications online. “To gain the confidence of the job seekers, they offered reservations and concessional fees as it is done in government jobs,” the release said, adding that the advertisements were given in a majority of mainstream newspapers.

The website carried syllabi for each post and also warnings about job fraud. Attracted by such advertisements, which resembled that of the government, lakhs of unemployed youths across the nation applied for the posts from 2020 onwards by paying the required application fees.

The scamsters also conducted online examinations as well as interviews. But none of them was being given appointments or was deliberately disqualified. The amounts collected from the candidates were deposited in different accounts which were ultimately controlled and managed by Dharampal, who was the secretary of the GRKS.

The EOW has so far recovered around Rs 6.6 crore from the accused. One mobile phone and incriminating documents relating to Gramin Rojgar Kalyan Sansthan have been seized from Jairam. Further investigation is underway.