In what appears to be a mega scam in Bihar’s education department, enrolments of over three lakh out of some 10 lakh students shown to have been admitted in the state’s primary and middle schools have been found to be fake.
As more reports of thousands of fake admissions are pouring in from several districts as part of an ongoing cleansing exercise and the erring schools’ headmasters are being held accountable, the main Opposition party RJD on Saturday termed the phenomenon as a “`6,000-crore scam” and demanded a CBI probe. Senior RJD leaders also demanded the removal of education minister P.K. Shahi.
The large-scale fake enrolments in Bihar’s schools in the past five years have posed serios questions on the utilisation of funds from the government’s education schemes such as the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), mid-day meal scheme, and the schemes of free bicycles and uniforms for students. On Thursday, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had accused the Centre of withholding the release of SSA funds allocated for Bihar, saying the Centre had so far released only `1,145 crore out of its share of `7,500 crore.
The RJD alleged that massive amounts of all the education funds were embezzled by “a nexus” in Bihar.
While many students were found to have been enrolled in several schools simultaneously, there were others who were enrolled in government schools but studied at private schools, said education department officials engaged in the “cleaning of register” campaign run by the Bihar educational quality mission.