Do not rob the students of stipends

Dear Editor,
I would like to inform you that because of your timely publishing of the matters related to disbursement of stipend to students, the concerned authorities have been warned and as a consequence the Director of Secondary Education, Itanagar has issued letters to the respective DDSE’s of the districts to not release the stipend amounts in cash to the school In-charges.
It has been generally observed that the Directorate of Higher and Technical Education and Directorate of Secondary Education have little controversy on the matter as they generally deal with the older students who know their rights and privileges. Therefore, there is less chance of them being duped by the principals or Teacher In-charges of Stipend matters.
But it is the generally the Directorate of Elementary Education and the Directorate of Tribal Affairs where much anomalies have been reported in the past few years.
It is understood that the Directorate of Elementary Education is in connivance with the district authority in depriving the poor kids of the elementary level of stipend money.
In many of the cases the bogus identities of students who have already passed out from the institution are used to prepare fake bills and the money withdrawn from the district treasury are distributed among the school and district authorities themselves. In the cases where genuine and bonafide student’s list have been submitted their bank accounts are not provided as a pretext to draw the stipend amounts in cash.
All this can be surmised from the fact that the Directorate of Elementary Education has in recent months issued instructions to some of the districts to release the stipend amounts in cash, which is a very high handed act and illegal. One cannot understand the prudence of this act, as we all know that even the remotest places like Anini and Kurung Kumey have banks and salaries and other transactions amounting to crores of rupees are being made through direct beneficiary system.
If at all the payment is to be made there has to be mechanism whereby it will be ensured that the concerned school authorities who receive the amounts will not rob the money from the students by not informing the poor ones who are too young and innocent to understand what is happening around them in the corrupted world where their teachers are also making money at their expense. One way out to avoid such a situation could be that the students should be paid with bankers cheque or drafts in their name so that the bonafide students only can en cash it in any nearby banks.
I hope the concerned authorities will act early in order to clear their name and bring back the lost glory of their offices.
Yours,
L.T Anthony