Times of India: New Delhi: Wednesday, October 29, 2014.
The Justice
Anil Dev Singh Committee has made its recommendations, the high court has
cleared them and the Directorate of Education has notified that order but it'll
be a while before most parents see even a paisa of the money they're owed by
private schools. The committee, over five interim reports submitted to the HC
from August, 2012 to May, 2014, identified 330 schools that have been asked to
refund the fee to parents with 9% interest per annum.
On Tuesday,
the DoE informed the Delhi high court that only five of these schools have paid
up.
"While
five schools of district: NW-B (north-west B) have confirmed in writing that
they have refunded the excess fee with 9% interest, the reports from other
schools are still awaited," the department informed HC adding that
"some of the schools have shown their inability in writing to comply with
the ...committee's interim reports by citing various reasons." However,
DOE is not writing those amounts off yet and promises it "is making all
the efforts to ensure the compliance."
For the bills
the committee's run up Rs. 2.11 crore there's been little impact till now. The
reply to the RTI filed by lawyer-activist Khagesh Jha shows that the total
amount refunded by the five schools to parents is only Rs 51,17,952. The
highest amount restored to parents by any school is the Rs 19.46 lakh paid by
Aakash Model School at Baljeet Nagar. B.R Tyagi Public Senior Secondary School
in Rohini has paid Rs 18.35 lakh; Ch. Khusi Ram Model School in Nangloi has
paid Rs 7.15 lakh; Nav Jyoti Public School, Sultanpuri, has paid Rs 3.99 lakh
and CPM Public School, Sultanpuri, Rs 2.21 lakh.
The Justice
Anil Dev Singh Committee was established in September 2011 to study if the
city's public unaided schools had raised student fee citing the Sixth Central
Pay Commission (6th CPC) recommendations without actually raising teachers'
salaries. The committee studied the records of 745 schools. Of these 330 were
asked to pay back, 95 were recommended for "special inspection", on
55 the committee couldn't decide and 25, they discovered, don't have bank
accounts. The committee cleared only 208 schools.
During the
hearing on Tuesday, advocate Ashok Aggarwal also complained to the bench that
since February this year, the state government has failed to pay salary to the
HC appointed panel examining fee hike. HC then asked the government to ensure
the Justice Singh committee gets salaries due.
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