More skeletons tumble out of village schools in CCpur district
Beds, cooking gas in supposed classrooms
Source: The Sangai Express / S Singlianmang Guite

Lamka, October 12 2011: Close on the heels of the Deputy Commissioner of Churachandpur serving a show cause notice on the Headmaster of a school for allegedly cooking up the number of students in the school and thereby availing numerous grants and aid from the School Education Department, another case of fudging students enrolment and other misdemeanours has surfaced.

This came to light during an inspection tour conducted by a team of officials in Singngat area of Churachandpur district.

Besides inflating the number of students enrolled in the school, the team found out that multiple sanctions have been made under various developmental schemes for constructing the school building within a span of three financial years at Sialna village under Singngat subdivision.

Moreover the building supposed to be a school has turned out to be a planned residential structure and this also came to light during the inspection tour by the officials.

(Top) A gas stove sits in a room meant to be a classroom and a view of the school

When the visiting officials sought to have a glimpse of the newly constructed school building in the village, some disagreement arose on the actual amount sanctioned for it.

A closer look on the records of the Education Department, and the DRDA revealed that multiple sanctions have been made towards the construction.

A highly placed source, in possession of the records, said three separate sanctions under SSA (2008-09), BRGF (2007-08) and MSDP (2009-10) have been granted to the village Government school that has barely twenty students within a span of three years.

The amount sanctioned under MSDP stands at Rs 10 lakhs, while for the other two schemes it was Rs 3 lakhs, and Rs 3.5 lakhs, added the source.

The visiting officials were visibly shocked to see the school rooms which looked more like residential apartments.

When viewed from outside it has five doors and five windows, but in reality it has just three rooms with one additional room behind the spacious middle room.

The presence of a cooking gas there gives the impression that one room is meant to be a kitchen.

One of the two other rooms has beds as well.The Deputy Commissioner has reportedly served show cause notice on the village chief.