Times of India: Mumbai: Friday,
October 25, 2013.
A principal
who used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to expose financial malpractice at
her college has found herself in a Kafkaesque situation as she and 13 other
staff members have not been paid their salaries for a year.
Dr Snehal
Donde, principal at Hind Seva Parishad's Public Night Degree College (Santa
Cruz), filed a series of RTI applications over the absence of government
assessment of her college since it began receiving salary grants from the
education department a decade ago. Donde says she was privy to financial irregularities
carried out at the college.
Donde first
wrote to joint director (JD), higher education, Mumbai, in April 2009
requesting information on any audits of her college carried out by the JD since
the department began releasing grants. "I did not receive any reply to a
series of letters I sent the JD. I then filed RTI applications requesting the
information," says Donde. Dissatisfied with the information provided by
the JD's office, she filed appeals under the RTI Act. Maharashtra's chief information
commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad even passed an order directing the JD's office to
give Donde the information she sought.
Meanwhile,
the JD's office conducted an assessment of the college in October 2012, two
years after Donde brought up the matter. It showed the college had
misappropriated over Rs 1 crore. A letter from joint director Manjusha Molwane
directed the college to cough it up in three installments. When the sum was not
recovered, Molwane sent out another letter asking the college to adjust the money
it owed the government with its staff salaries.
Though the
JD's office continued giving the college funds for staff salaries, the college
has not passed it on for a year. In other words, Donde, whose RTI queries
triggered an inspection of the college, finds herself without a year's salary.
"It is
wrong on the management's part not to pay its staff for a year, despite
receiving money from the government. I have written to the management on the
subject," says Molwane. She justifies her earlier letter asking for
salaries to be adjusted against the money the college owed the government as
she says the government cannot be held responsible for funds a college
misappropriates.
"It is
true the assessment for several Mumbai colleges was pending. Since my joining
as JD in 2010, we have taken up this agenda and assessed over 45 colleges with
the available bandwidth," says Molwane.
When asked
why the Santa Cruz college was assessed two years after the principal began
writing to her office, Molwane says the process took time as she had several
colleges to assess. As for Gaikwad's order demanding that her office provide
Donde with information, Molwane says this is because the PIO from JD's office
was unable to attend the hearing, and so Gaikwad was not given a complete
understanding of the situation. When TOI contacted Y Dubey of the college
management, he did not comment on the matter, saying education was not a matter
that should be debated.