Times of India: Vellore: Wednesday, May 31, 2017.
At least `120
crore, allocated as assistance for thousands of SCST girl students under the
National Scheme of Incentive to Girl Child Education (NSIGCE), remains unused
due to apathy of education department officials and lack of coordination among
the implementing agencies.According to documents available with TOI, the Union
ministry of human resource development allocated `152.17 crore under the scheme
between 2008-09 and 2012-13. Only `28.57 crore had, however, been disbursed to
the beneficiaries from 2008-09 to 2010-11. The ministry on January 6 took back
the remaining `123.6 crore from the Government Business Branch of Canara Bank,
New Delhi, the nodal agency for the scheme.
The scheme
was designed to promote enrollment among girls from SC ST communities and
retain them up to Class XII. Under the scheme, `3,000 would be deposited in
each student's bank account after they enrolled in Class IX. Those psiing Class
X would be entitled to withdraw the money with interest after they attain 18
years. According to dalit activist and member of Dalit Liberation Movement S
Karuppaiah, the state and Union governments had failed miserably to execute the
scheme.
Lack of
coordination among the departments of the state and Union governments undid the
scheme."Ambiguity prevails over the disbursement of the fund and the
channel to reach the beneficiaries. The MHRD, school education department of TN
and the bank are giving contradictory details and statements over the number of
beneficiaries, fund allocation and payments," Karuppaiah told TOI. He
filed a case in the Madras high court. Attempts to reach officials of the
various departments proved futile.
Officials in
the MHRD said they allocated `33.30 crore for 1,10,991 beneficiaries in Tamil
Nadu whereas the Directorate of School Education said the total number of
beneficiaries were 1,21,292. The education department furnished the details
under RTI Act.School education secretary T Udhayachandran, in an official
communication, mentioned the number of matured beneficiaries for the academic
year 2008-09 as 87,166 and the amount allocated to them as incentives as `36.38
crore.
But, deputy
secretary of department of school education and literacy , MHRD, D K Goel, in
his response to Karuppaiah's petition said they received maturity data for
86,018 candidates for 2008-09.Of them, payment of `13.63 crore out of `33.30
crores was made to 35,645 students.