[ Amar Sangno ]
ITANAGAR, Jun 24: More skeletons are tumbling out of the closet of the education department in Kamle district, with Deputy Director of School Education (DDSE), Likha Togur, on Monday claiming that there have been fake enrollment in various schools in the district to claim stipends.
Tugor’s charge comes in the wake of the surfacing of serious anomalies in the disbursement of student stipends in the district.
In a statement he issued on Monday afternoon, the DDSE claimed that he “personally visited various schools after the disbursement of stipends and inspected the attendance registers of the schools,” and found that “the enrollment of students is quite higher than the actual enrollment.”
“All the schools concerned had submitted fake enrollment and fake accounts. The DDSE has collected the evidence,” he said.
According to documents the DDSE made available to this daily, nine fake enrollment were found to have been made in the government upper primary school in Liruk, in Gepen circle.
Tugor claimed that, of a total of 112 enrollment, “nine students are fake.” Similarly, he said, the enrollment of all 12 students in the government middle school in Mite, in Puchi-Geko circle, was fake.
“However, the stipends have been released and disbursed against all fake students’ names through the stipend coordinator, headmasters and the teachers in-charge,” the DDSE said.
The stipend bills come through the headmasters, and are supposed to be countersigned by the school management committees and the administrative officers of the blocks concerned in order to authenticate the list of the beneficiaries.
Contradicting the stipend coordinator’s claim that the DDSE disbursed the stipend amounts in cash, Tugor said he did not disburse any amount for the stipends in violation of the direct benefit transfer (DBT) guidelines.
Continuing to address himself in the third person, he said in the statement that “the DDSE handed over the stipends to the coordinator with instruction to ask the headmasters/teachers in-charge to disburse the stipends in the accounts of the students and submit the details of the action taken to the authority concerned.”
Tugor further clarified that lack of students’ bank account details and the enforcement of the election model code of conduct were the reasons for his holding back the stipends till the month of June.
The DDSE added that, due to the pressure mounted by the All Kamle District Students’ Union (AKDSU), he was compelled to hand over the charge of disbursing the stipend amounts to the coordinator, in keeping with the DBT guidelines. He said “cent percent amount has been disbursed through the coordinator” and no remaining amount is pending in his office.
Tugor also questioned the credibility of the AKDSU, which has accused him of mismanaging projects under the CMSSY.
“ADKSU general secretary Guchi Nir started renovation of the Chimir upper primary school without due consent from the district authority, and without the school having been selected and approved by the district level selection committee (DLSC). He was claiming false bills repeatedly, whereas there is no fund approved against the school by the DLSC under the CMSSY,” the DDSE said.
Nir, however, denied the allegation, terming it baseless.
“If the DDSE really wants to clarify, he should clarify about our 12-point charter of demands. For the renovation of the Chimir school, the former MLA gave me a note-sheet, instructing me to start renovation in an anticipatory mode,” he said. He also said he never approached the DDSE for payment.
With regard to the allegation that he deducted 35 percent from the payments made to the CMSSY contractors, the DDSE clarified that the deduction was “mandatory under laid down norms, which meant 12 percent GST, 2 percent contingency, and 1 percent labour cess, and the remaining 20 percent was held for non-completion of works.”
The DDSE termed the allegations levelled against him by the AKDSU “baseless,” and said the statement of the union’s president and the general secretary was “self-motivated and immature.”
He added that the AKDSU carried out renovation work at the government higher secondary school in Raga, amounting to Rs 15 lakhs and Rs 10 lakhs for fencing, “which was incomplete, as per the detailed project report.”
He said the government has released 75 percent of the fund, and that the remaining 25 percent will be released after submission of the utilization certificate.
