Patna, Jan. 15: The Bihar education department plans to centralise the process of issuing transfer certificates to students in a bid to check fake admission of children in government schools to avail benefits such as free uniform, cycle, mid-day meal and scholarship.

Education minister P.K. Shahi today said his department would prepare a printed format of transfer certificate and send the printouts to the respective schools. “The transfer certificates will bear the hologram of the department and a number to ensure that there is no duplication of students. Earlier, anomalies were detected in case of transfer certificates being printed by some schools,” he said.

The education minister claimed that media reports about admission of lakhs of fake students, as reported by the media from a dozen of districts, were based on a survey done by the department as part of the Samjhe Sikhen programme launched last year by chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Shahi said: “The department is planning to computerise all details of children studying in government schools to ensure that there are less chances of duplication of students availing government benefits.”