What happened
The Comptroller and Auditor General's performance audit of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) has revealed what might be the most creatively fraudulent government scheme in Indian history. Training partners claimed to conduct sessions on 31st February — a date that has never existed in any calendar system known to humanity. Of 95.9 lakh beneficiary bank accounts, 94.53% contained entries like '11111111111', '123456', 'null', 'N/A', or were simply blank. The same photograph was recycled across multiple trainees. Of 1.1 crore certificates issued, 34 lakh beneficiaries never received a single rupee. When the CAG tried emailing beneficiaries, 36.5% bounced — and of those that didn't, 76.6% of responses came from the training providers themselves, essentially writing their own reviews. Three of ten training centres in Bihar were physically closed during inspection. The NSDC has since blacklisted 178 training partners, which is the skill development equivalent of closing the stable door after the horse has been trained on a non-existent date.