Anomalies in Jharkhand's printing books for tribal kids: CAG

The Jharkhand government printed books in five tribal languages for primary school children but failed to appoint teachers on time leading to a wasteful expenditure of Rs 1.05 crore, a CAG report has said.

"Printing and distribution of books worth Rs 1.05 crore without the support of teaching staff defeated the very purpose of promoting education in tribal language and resulted in wasteful expenditure of Rs 1.05 crore," the report said.

The books were published according to the government's decision to impart primary education in tribal languages in addition to Hindi in the tribal state in June 2003.

The state's human resource department had approved printing of books in five tribal languages — Mundari, Kharia and Khuduk in Devnagari script, Santhali in Olchiki script and Ho in Barangchhiti script - for students from Class I to V.

Tribal Welfare Research Institute (TWRI), Ranchi had prepared the manuscripts of the books, which were to be distributed free by the Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) among students from the academic session 2002-2003.

However, the books could not be utilised by the students in the absence of qualified teachers in tribal languages, the report said. The CAG detected anomalies after scrutinising records in five offices of TWRI, Jharkhand Education Project Council, DPE and two district education offices.

"The books printed in 2003-04 were distributed among students up to 2004-05 on non-returnable basis.

Government neither appointed teachers, who could teach in tribal languages in particular scripts nor these books were made part of the syllabus rendering the cost of printing books wasteful," the report said.

Scrutiny of these offices between May 2007 and May 2008 revealed that TWRI got 2.5 lakh books printed (50,000 for each class) in 2003-04 at an expenditure of Rs 33.75 lakh.

The government again printed another 7.25 lakh books in 2007-08 at an expenditure of Rs 71.61 lakh without ensuring availability of teachers again. This time again the books were distributed among students.

Both the times the money was paid from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan fund.