Rs 120 cr siphoned off in Maharashtra's Nanded district on state-aided schools; most students in records are bogus

MUMBAI: A major scam has been unearthed in the education sector in Maharashtra's Nanded district where crores have been spent by the government on state-aided schools, but most students in these school records have been found to be bogus.

According to the government's initial assessment Rs 120 crore worth of funds have been siphoned away in Nanded district alone and similar scams could be happening in many districts. Acting on complaints from Nanded, state chief secretary Ratanakar Gaikwad visited the place and carried out raids to find that though state-aided schools have had no students in classrooms and the number of teachers was inflated.

In some cases, the number of students shown on the record was inflated by over 50%. Confirming the reports about the scam, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said this issue is extremely serious and the government has initiated immediate action against the culprits. The issue rocked the state Cabinet's meeting on Wednesday where state PWD minister said that if similar scams are happening in other districts then the total figure of misappropriation could be close to Rs 3,000 crore.

The Cabinet meeting saw a hot debate over how to curb the trend of showing bogus students on record. The ministers were shocked to see the presentation made by the chief secretary and demanded that raids should be carried out in other districts as well. Some of the schools are run by activists of political parties.