Patna: Authorities in Bihar have initiated action against 251 headmasters after they found more than 200,000 ghost students being served midday meals in government-run schools. This was probably for the first time that the state government initiated action against such a large number of school principals for their involvement in scandals.
A senior education department official said the erring teachers have been slapped a monetary fine of Rs6.16 million (Dh353,002) and have been told to deposit the money as quick as possible, failing which they could be fired from jobs. All the school principals hail from Araria, an eastern Bihar’s district having a dominant population of Muslims.
“About 70 per cent of guilty school headmasters have deposited the amount so far. Severe punitive action will be initiated against those who fail to deposit the penalty,” a local official in charge of midday meals, Subhash Gupta, told media on Wednesday.
The issue came to light during the annual assessment of students’ attendance in schools. As per reports, although more than half a million students were shown to have been enrolled in school registers in 2,080 primary schools, only 350,000 of them were found appearing at annual examinations.
“That meant 200,000 students were fake ones. Although they were shown as regularly being served the free lunches in the school, they never attended the schools. Either they didn’t exist or were pursuing studies somewhere,” another senior official added. “This was probably done to pocket the government fund meant for serving free school lunches,” he explained.
The misappropriation of funds coupled with the substandard quality of foods being served to schoolchildren has been an issue of serious concern in India. As such, reports of lizards, rats, cockroaches and other insects being found in school lunches and leaving the poor students on hospital beds have been more frequent.
Last year, a local court in Bihar sentenced a primary school headmistress to 17 years of imprisonment in connection with the death of 23 children who died after eating spurious midday meals in school three years ago.
A total of 23 children had died after eating the poisonous midday meal at a primary school at Dharmasti-Gandaman village, located under Masrak block in Saran district on July 16, 2013.
Reports said altogether 80 children who had attended school on the fateful day had been served soyabean curry and rice as a midday meal. While around a dozen children died on school grounds, the rest died during the course of treatment in local hospitals.
