The state education department is likely to strike off enrolment of around 3.55 lakh students on the charges that they are studying in two schools at a time. These students, according to officials, are enrolled in one private and one government school and have been fraudulently taking benefits of government schemes meant for needy students.
The government schemes are only for those students who are enrolled in government schools. The education department spends thousands of rupees every year on each student to arrest the drop-out rate and incentivise studies at the primary and secondary levels.
The department has identified the cases of multiple admissions through Aadhaar seeding of the enrolled students, and they have been found accused taking unauthorised advantage of the government schemes.
Officials said that the names and details of students getting illegitimate advantage of the government schemes, mainly the cash incentives, were culled down from the Aadhaar-based list of students enrolled in various private schools and the government schools.
In Bihar, there are about 3 crore students enrolled in around 72,000 government schools, including primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary sections. Till last year, the department had dropped names of over 20 lakh students, who were not attending students for a long time and without assigning valid reasons.
Earlier this year, the education department had directed all private schools to furnish details of all students along with Aadhaar numbers to the concerned district education offices (DEOs). The idea was to understand the exact number of the students who opt out from studying at the government schools.
As per records with the education department, the Patna DEO has identified 9,310 students who have not been coming to the students for a long time or they have taken admissions in the private schools. “In the course of rigorous scrutiny of regular students, it was found that several students have taken admissions in the government schools to draw cash incentives approved by the government to them under various incentive programmes.
“Some of the students, who are attending private schools, have also kept enrolled in the government schools for the sake of getting cash incentives like cycle schemes, uniform scheme, books, besides the scholarships and incentives for better results,” said a senior officer of the education department, adding that the private schools are being asked regularly to upload details of students enrolled there on the E-Shiksha Kosh portal regularly.
HIGHLIGHTS
Amount of cash given to each student through direct benefit transfer (DBT) in Bihar
Cycle Yojna: ₹3,500- Once
Poshak Yojna: ₹550- ₹850- per year
Scholarship: ₹500- ₹1000 / month
Mukyamantri Vidyarthi Protsahan Yojna: ₹10,000- ₹15,000 to selected meritorious students
Kitab Yojna: Discontinued/ books are being distributed now
