One day’s salary of as many as 95 headmasters were withheld by the Block Education Officer (BEO) of Gurundia block under Bonei sub division, due to irregularities in providing school attendance figure for midday meal (MDM) scheme.
The headmasters were reportedly avoiding to provide the attendance data of their schools, on one plea or the other, even though they were strictly directed to provide the same.
In a bid to bring transparency in the MDM scheme, the district education officer (DEO) had directed all headmasters to submit their daily attendance figures to their respective BEOs in a stipulated time. The attendance figure helps in keeping track of exact number of school children who availed the MDM on each day. Since allegations were coming that the school authorities were submitting inflated figures in attendance and claiming higher expenditure on MDM, the attendance system through SMS was sought to reduce the practice.
According to sources, as per the instruction of the DEO, BEO Gurundia Susila Kujur had directed headmaster of as many as 176 schools of Gurundia block to send the attendance figure, through SMS to her, latest by 11 am every day. Kujur had initiated the drive on November 23 to all these schools where as about 95 schools were found to be defaulters, as they were not providing the figure.