Bihar: Enrolment scam haunts Nitish Kumar

Patna: A huge scam has come up in the education department of Bihar wherein one third of the government school students in the state exist only on paper. Huge sums of money have been siphoned off to avail government benefits like free uniform, bicycle, mid-day meal and scholarships.

The scam, running into crore, has shown that 1/3 of Bihar's students do not exist. As many as 3,36,000 ghost students, from a total of 10,00,000, have been identified from nine districts of Bihar's primary and middle schools, and the figures could well swell above the two million mark.

"This matter has come to the light and I have asked for probe into it," said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Ghost admissions have resulted in government funds being siphoned off. Money has been used to avail government-aided benefit schemes like free uniforms, bicycles, mid-day meals and scholarships.

"Discrepancies of such kind must not be called scams. I do not consider it a scam," said Bihar HRD Minister P K Sahi.

Even as the state government is in a state of denial, its own figures prove otherwise.

As many as 70,000 fake-enrolled students are in Banka district while around 57,000 are in West Champaran. Similarly, there are 53,000 in Sitamarhi, 50,000 in Rohtas, 34,000 in Katihar, 33,000 in Muzaffarpur, 32,000 in Jamui, 4,000 in Darbhanga, and 3,000 in Kaimur districts.

And the numbers are counting.

"If an FIR is filed, it will include school managements, parents and even students. Are we sitting here to make the children accused?" said Sahi.

Gifting bi-cycle to school students had won brownie for Nitish Kumar during the last election, but the same scheme has become like a noose around his neck. After seven years of rule in Bihar, the emerging enrollment scam has left him fending for words to defend the misdeeds of his bureaucracy.

The Opposition, meanwhile, has taken this opportunity to fire a salvo at Nitish Kumar. The RJD has alleged that the government had fudged the figures of student enrollment ratio to win national awards.

"There must be a probe throughout Bihar by the CBI. Everyone is involved and it is a scam worth thousands of crores. This is the biggest scam of the country," said former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Spilling into crores, the scam has been one of the biggest in Nitish Kumar's seven-year-stint, and can cause a dent to Brand Bihar.

Source: IBN Live NEWS
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/bihar-enrolment-scam-haunts-nitish-kumar/2216...