Mid-day meal being served at a government school in Kendrapara. Telegraph picture

Kendrapara, Feb. 8: An ‘identification drive’ launched by the district administration to ascertain the genuine number of students in government-run primary schools of the district has brought into focus large scale ‘ghost’ enrolment of students.

Sources said the government exchequer has had to cough up more than Rs 78lakh every year towards feeding these ‘ghost’ students.

“An identification drive was launched and all school-going children of the district were photographed. Their snapshots were affixed in the school’s attendance register. It has been found that around 12,000 ‘fake’ students were enrolled in attendance registers of schools across the district,” said Kendrapara collector Dhananjaya Das.

It is widely believed that fake enrolment in schools stems from the high stakes in mid-day meal funds.

The combined student strength of 1,979 government-run primary and upper primary schools across the district earlier stood at 1,89,779. After the photographic drive, the number has dropped to 1,78,513.

“As many as 11,266 students were not traceable and could not be photographed. We believe that the enrolment of these students was on pen and paper only,” said Das.

Blocks such as Mahakalpada (2,366), Kendrapara (2,129) and Aul (1,551) accounted for the highest number of ghost student enrolments.

The mid-day meal ration quota, which was being released for these bogus students, has now been stopped.

Mid-day meal ration worth Rs 693 was being sanctioned for each non-existent student for 210 days a year. The government exchequer had to cough up Rs 78,07,338 every year towards feeding these ‘ghost’ students, said official sources.

“A departmental probe committee has been constituted to look into factors that led to such large-scale ghost student enrolment. Disciplinary action will be taken against those involved in the incident.

“The administration had taken up the drive to take snapshots of every student of primary school as mid-day meal related complaints were pouring in from various parts of the district. It is now mandatory that every student’s photo features in the attendance register. The method has helped to a great extent in detecting fake students,” Das said.

Educationist Bhagaban Jena said: “This is the first exercise of its kind in the state to detect ghost enrolment of students. Authorities of other districts should take up similar drives to curb ghost enrolments in government schools.”