Exercise books meant for poor sold as scrap

Shillong, Jul 01 (UNI) The Meghalaya government today ordered a departmental inquiry into the sell exercise books meant to be freely distributed to the poor students under under the Sarva Shikhsa Abhiyan (SSA) sheme.

The corruption was unearthed by members of the Hynniewtrep National Youth Front (HNYF), a social organization, from Ri Bhoi district after the driver of the Education Department, J Khymdeit sold the exercise books as scrap.

Ribhoi Deputy Commssioner S F Khongwir said he had directed the Deputy Inspector of School G Diengdoh to initiate an inquiry into the matter.

'' Khymdeit sold fourteen gunny sacks, each weighing 52 kilos, containing the exercise at Rs 6 per kg to a local scarp dealer at Nongpoh. Incidentally, the market price of each copy comes to around Rs 12-13, '' Mr Diengdoh said.

As per SSA procedure, Mr Diengdoh said the copy books were supposed to be released from the office of the Block Mission Co-ordinator, Umling block to the cluster co-ordinator to be distributed to the students of the poor families in the state under SSA .

The exercise books were meant to be distributed from the office of the block mission coordinator, Umling to clusters coordinators in the whole district.

The SSA programme aims to provide free universal elementary education and bridge social, regional and gender gaps through community ownership of schools at the grassroots.

The Centre provides 75 per cent of the fund, while the state governments give the rest. In 2007-08 Meghalaya received Rs 2359.63 lakh under the programme as grant from the centre.

UNI RRK SJC RN1706