Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Jalandhar, June 1
The Director General, School Education, (DGSE) office has taken notice of an issue that multiple students have been registered on the same mobile numbers within the institute under the Pre-Matric Scholarship for SCs in the state during 2017-2018, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020.
According to the circular by the DGSE, Punjab, the Auditor General has pointed out the issue. A detailed list of students along with the names of their schools and mobile numbers have been sent for verification and the reason for the same has been sought from the District Education Officers (DEOs).
373 beneficiaries ‘ineligible’
- Another issue of 373 ‘ineligible’ beneficiaries under the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for SCs in the state has also been raised in the circular
- The Education Department has said as per data, the family income of these students was less than Rs 2.5 lakh, but they owned four-wheelers, which wasn’t possible
- The department said this needs to be verified and checked if these students were eligible for the scholarship or not
Shockingly, in some cases, the same number has been registered with over 15 students.
The letter states that a list of the students was being sent to the respective DEOs. “We are sending this list to you. Give a reason that why the same mobile phone number has been registered with several students. The department needs information at the earliest,” the circular reads.
Meanwhile, Education Department officials from Jalandhar, Nawanshahr and Kapurthala said verification was being done in this regard. They claimed some students do not have mobile phones, which was why either clerks or teachers give out their own contact numbers in such cases.
“To save time in asking OTP from every student, same numbers are given,” an official dealing with the scholarship scheme claimed.
Sources in the department said such problems created issues in the disbursement of scholarship. “The circular itself tells that this is not a minor issue,” a source said.
When contacted, DGSE Pardeep Aggarwal said, “We are correcting the phone numbers of the students.”
Multiple pupils registered on same numbers, DEOs ask why
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