Paradip, May 23: The vigilance wing of state police has taken a headmaster of a government-run primary school and a chief of village education committee in Jagatsinghpur district into custody on charges of misappropriation of grants under the Reconstruction of School Buildings Project (RSBP).
After a probe into the alleged fund bungling, the vigilance officers found corroborative evidence of misuse of RSBP grants sanctioned for the reconstruction of the building of Jankoti Primary School in Jagatsinghpur district. “On charges of misappropriating the grants, we have arrested the then head master, Abhaya Biswal, and village education committee chief Laxman Swain,” said Sarat Kumar Swain, sub-inspector of the vigilance wing.
The Balrampur Primary School under Jankoti village panchayat received Rs 5.93lakh under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for the financial year 2004 under the RSBP. But the reconstruction of school building work was not completed because of alleged fund misuse by the arrested duo.
As a result, classroom teaching is still being held in the dilapidated old school building.
Peeved over the delay in reconstructing the school building, parents and guardians of the school’s students petitioned the vigilance wing of state police alleging that the headmaster of the school in connivance with the chief of the village education committee gobbled funds up. After technical supervision, it was found that hardly Rs 4lakh was spent, leaving the reconstruction work incomplete. The rest of the sanctioned grant amount was found to have been misused, said a vigilance officer.
“The central government sponsored RSBP is ridden with corrupt practices across this coastal district. Grants for the project have become a bone of contention with both schoolteachers and village education committee members vying with each other to eat it up. Most of the reconstruction projects have been marred by irregularities and substandard construction works.
The vigilance wing should probe into the quality of work undertaken in other RSBP projects as well,” said Dinabandhu Rout, a retired schoolteacher.
