Indore: Despite the transfer of amount from state government, local authorities are not transferring the amount of students studying under Right to Education (RTE) Act to various private schools demanding excessive proposals and payments citing short-comings in the same, claimed Madhya Pradesh Board Private School Association, Indore.
Association patron Gopal Soni said, “As per the process of RTE, the entire procedure must be completed online and the last check is done by nodal officer in the school. However, district project coordinator (DPC) and block resource coordinator (BRC) are forcing private schools to additionally submit printed proposals and then citing short-comings to extort money from school owners.”
He claimed that DPC and BRC have been extorting money from school owners for years by adding this physical submission of proposals to the process, which is not prescribed by government. “Recently, we urged state government to settle the amount of last two years of RTE students, which would help us in paying our employees and celebrating Diwali,” Soni said.
At their request, state education department transferred about Rs 10 crore to DPC. DPC Akshay Singh Rathore confirmed receiving the amount on November 11 and said, “We already transferred Rs 6 crore 64 lakh to various schools by November 13, whose process was complete.”
However, Soni along with the association members claimed that the amount was not transferred to most schools. “There are schools, which are a part of the association, where their payment of even Rs 7 lakh is held up till date,” he said.
On payments of RTE, Rathore said, “The process for RTE payments of academic session 2018-19 have just begun and it might take from 3 to 4 month to a year, as we will require approved proposals.” He added that a file with all the approved proposals is prepared every 15 days.
“This year, we have transferred some amount of academic session 2018-19 in advance due to lockdown enforced for controlling covid-19 outspread. This advance amount has to be now deducted from proposals manually, so the time for transferring the amount is longer and tedious,” Rathore said.
On the proposal submission, Rathore said, “I have recently issued instructions to all the schools, not to approach BRC office with printed proposals, as it is not a part of the process.” He added that the nodal officer is required to send in a printed and soft copy to DPC office, not the school.
“The schools which fail to get their proposals approved from nodal officers approach BRC office looking for a way to get their proposals accepted,” Rathore said.
