Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)’s report, tabled on the last day of the special session of the state Assembly, has laid bare the shocking fact that the State Government had not cared to collect the data of the children belonging to the weaker sections of the society regarding their right to free education up to a certain level of studies.
The report criticised the State Government for failing to have a comprehensive planning to rightly execute the right to education (RTE) act which makes elementary education a fundamental right of all children in the age- group of 6-14 year. It provides that every child of this age- group would have a right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood schools till the time he or she completes elementary education. As per the CAG report, the failure of the state government in collecting detailed data of the children from the unprivileged families resulted in an inordinate delay in the reimbursement of expenses to the schools concerned from the end of the government, thus impairing their ability to continue education despite being admitted under RTE. Besides, Rs 0.45 crore was disbursed without verification of attendance and Rs 0.19 crore was disbursed to ineligible schools instead of depositing the amounts directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiary children. This aside, as the CAG report pointed out, Rs 7.07 crore was left unutilised for two years.
The failure to implement the RTE Act in the state resulted in poor retention rate, imbalanced pupil- teacher ratio and below par learning level, the report said, adding that there was a delay too in providing the required infrastructure with 77 percent of the construction of the new schools, 27 percent of the construction of the additional class room/principal rooms and 26 percent of the reconstruction of schools remaining either incomplete or un-started.
The report further pointed out that the performance audit of implementation of the schemes meant for Uttarkahand police had brought out weakness in the part of planning as well as shortage of weapons, vehicles, equipment and manpower which affected the operational activities of the department.
The land revenue department failed to maintain any database of recoveries of outstanding loans and other government dues, according to the report. lack of a coordinated database of both district and tehsil levels had undermined recovery efforts with the pace of recovery remaining at 24 percent on the average in the year 2013-14 to 2015-16.
Higher education department had not exercised due diligence to ensure compliance with extant guidelines while issuing letter of intent to sponsoring bodies for establishment of private universities, the report said, adding that the full compliance with the guidelines was made in only one out of 11 private universities located across the state. It also pointed out that the notification for establishment of Patanjali University was accorded before the endowment fund was established. Besides, PWD had not obeyed the government instruction regarding survey before preparation of estimates relating to improvement of roads to enable plying of volvo buses on the Dehradun- Mussoorie road, resulting in non- completion of the project despite an expenditure of Rs 14.57 crore having been incurred. The state government had made excessive use of bituminous macadam for widening and strengthening of New Tehri –Ghansali-Tilwara motor road, resulting in extra expenditure to the tune of Rs 2.81 crore involving PWD. The report also came down heavily on the medical health and family welfare department for releasing excessive fund to EMRI with Rs 18.85 crore lying unused with the private operator GVK EMRI till March 2016. The department had not cared to recover operation cost of Rs 6.34 crore from the operator.