Maharashtra to check actual no. of students in schools

Updated on: Saturday, September 24, 2011

Schools which show more number of students in their records than the actual number while seeking aid from the government will soon be under scanner, as the state government is set to conduct an audit by government officials in all aided and unaided schools, besides all ashram shalas. The audit, which will start in October, aims to document the actual number of students in each school. Ratnakar Gaikwad, chief secretary of state, has initiated the move against the backdrop of the incident in Nanded, where bogus students were reported by schools to seek additional aid.

A meeting of top officials on the issue was conducted at the Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration in the city on Thursday.

After the incident about the bogus reports submitted by the schools in Nanded came to light, the state conducted a survey in primary and secondary schools in Nanded district. The survey revealed that out of seven lakh students in the district, 1.35 lakh were bogus.

"It's a practice among most schools to report more number of students than the actual count so that additional expenditure on school facilities, teachers and food can be submitted. The aid received for these bogus students goes directly into the pocket of the school," Gaikwad said. All schools, except unaided private ones, are provided government facilities.

To stop such unethical practices, the government has decided to get the actual count of the students in the schools which receive government aid.

Currently, the state spends Rs 1,000 every year on every student and a total of Rs 1,400 crore is spent on the midday meals of students. In total, the Maharashtra government annually spends almost Rs 27,000 crore on education and loses almost Rs 2,500 crore in the name of the bogus students. "School authorities use bogus names to siphon off government funds. In Nanded alone, the misappropriation of funds runs up to Rs150 crore," Gaikwad said.

The pilot project to detect bogus students was conducted in Nanded on August 31. A total of 490 teams, comprising senior revenue and education department officials and 31 flying squads were set up to check 3,475 schools. The audit of all schools in the state will be conducted on similar lines, Gaikwad said.

"The government anticipates that 15 lakh students out of the 2.16 crore students registered across the state may be bogus. The state will ultimately save nearly Rs 1,000 crore from the amount currently spend on books, uniforms and midday meal schemes," an official from the state education department added.

Times of India

Maharashtra to check actual no. of students in schools

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