Nagpur Today: Nagpur: Monday, February 05, 2018.
Rachna Singh
comes from a family of educationists; her father Mr. Peter Belwa, and brother
Ashish Belwa both have been Principals of Hislop College, Nagpur at different
times.
She herself
is Principal of St Ursula, both the High School and Junior College. She is also
Secretary of Maharashtra Regional Board of Education. Because of these two
roles she plays, she is a respected member of both the Christian community of
the city and in the Education sector.
This lady,
after spending many decades in public service is suddenly the ‘target’ of many
accusations of financial fraud and bungling.
This began
after the Education Officer, without any inspection or scrutiny suddenly fired
a missive stating the ‘Principal of the school (St. Ursula) owed by way of default
or fine he did not state Rs. 20,25,051/ to the department.
Curiously,
copies of this letter were promptly circulated among all the media, English,
Hindi and Marathi newspapers etc. but Rachana was never sent the original
letter, she had to make efforts to go collect it herself!
In an
exclusive meeting with Nagpur Today Editorial team, Rachna and other Principals
of Christian schools who are also members of the Maharashtra Regional Board of
Eduction (that manages all schools run by Protestant missions in Vidarbha)
explain the sequence of events that began early in 2016 ( 11th April 2016)
culminated in this letter even after numerous presentations made by her stated
that she had done nothing wrong and after two committees set up to look into
the charges had also exonerated her of any crime, yet had charged recoveries
under some accounting lapses. (Which Rachna agrees to… more on this later.)
Another
strange fact is that committee after committee set up by Education and Mid Day
departments have claimed widely fluctuating sums like, Rs. 7,34, 509/, then Rs.
16,87,004/ till the third inquiry and committee of 3 constituted by the
Collector of Nagpur sometime in 2017 brought the amount down to Rs. 1,35,000/.
(Which also the school is contesting.)
And then
suddenly out of the blue, without doing any inquiry of any sort, the Education
Officer comes up with the figure of over Rs. 20 lakhs without any rational or
allowing time for any explanation and circulates it to the press!
As Rachna has
been submitting repeatedly, the amount in question was paid to the E.P.F.
office as the Provident Fund deduction of the employees working uner the Shalay
Poshan Aahar Scheme as per the P.F. Commissioner’s order.
“That I paid
them the stipulated minimum wages, instead of ad hoc amounts, and contributed
to their P.F. is the only thing I am ‘guilty’ of. This has brought me into the
cross current of two state govt. departments the Education Dept and the Mid Day
meal dept and one Central government scheme, the Provident Fund. But if I had
disobeyed the directives of the PF Act, it would have landed me straight behind
bars, so strict is the PF law.” Says Rachna.
” Another
factor that has led to recoveries being levied against my school is that
posting of some legitimate expenses was done wrongly under a different head.
Sum we had consumed for the Shalay Poshan Aahar ( Mid day meal) – as PF,
salaries and employee loans, was shown as ‘transfer to High School and Junior
College non-salary grant account’.
We
acknowledge that was an accounting error and our C.A. is rectifying it.”
“The mess
created by some vindictive elements misusing RTI Act”
Rachna Singh
and her fellow Principals like Manjusha Stevenson, Principal and Head Mistress
of Bishop Cotton School and Lilian Makasare, Principal and Head Mistress of
BCS, CBSE hold some over zealous elements who are misuing RTI and RTE to come
after Rachna Singh personally tongs and hammers.
“When you run
a large academic organization for many years, you have to displease some people
by not hiring their relatives – simply because they do not have the
qualifications or experience or not admitting students recommended by them…
people come to you asking for so many favours! When you do not oblige they
start creating trouble for you by constantly misusing RTI and RTE to create an
atmosphere of doubt and maligning your reputation” bemoans Rachna.
“On the accusations
of these people, an audit of food grains supplied to us for the Mid Day meal
was also carried out. Not a grain of rice was found diverted or not utilized”
points out Rachna with pride and confidence.
The RTI act
as we incorporated from some foreign countries was good but we made the mistake
of not including the important clause of Vexatious interest which was meant to
safeguard a person or institute against being harassed by same individuals
repeatedly and continually says Rachna, who has studied law also apart from
being an educationist.
As she has
complained to the Collector, Mr. Sachin Kurve, in writing:
“We want to
inform you that person namely Mr. Bharat B. Chouguley (who is neither a parent
nor the member of the Trust) is continuously troubling us by making repeated
RTIs against us despite two inquiries having been constituted on the charges
made.”
There seems
to be some substance to this accusation.
The number of
times Chougule has used RTI in a few years just for St. Ursula is an unbelievable
49 times!!!
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