BHOPAL: Staff of school education department (SED) transferred Rs 22.5 crore fund meant for scholarships into wrong accounts despite several reminders by the department to update the bank accounts of students.
School education director expressed his displeasure on laxity of the school staff despite reminders. SED had issued Rs 122 crore for scholarship for 2018-19. Now director has instructed the officials concerned to update the accounts within seven days so that scholarship reaches right persons.
Schools have also been directed to update the students profile and nomination at Samagra Shiksha Portal for the year 2019-20 so that the anomaly is not repeated.
During a review meeting, it was found that Tikamgarh, Sidhi, Seoni, Morena, Sehore and Shahdol districts were lagging behind in updating the bank accounts of students. They have been given seven days to complete it.
Only Umaria, Vidisha, Sagar and Mandla districts have completed above 90% profiling of students on portal; other districts were issued warning to complete the profiling of students on portal by December.
This is must as students can avail benefit of government schemes only if their profile is updated on the portal.
Another glaring discrepancy that came to the fore was several model schools were not transferred funds by district education officers. SED had set a system in which the funds were first transferred to the district education officer to be immediately transferred to the model schools. However, several model schools suffered fund crunch as the district education officers did not transfer the funds promptly.
No primary and middle schools to run from rented premises: Officials of the school education department have said that no primary and middle school will now run from rented premises. Officials in the directorate have sought information on number of schools being run in rented buildings. Such schools have been asked to shift in the nearest government school as the school education department will not provide rent from the next academic session.
Information has also been sought about schools without electricity. School education department has assured sending appropriate funds to provide electricity connections to such schools.
