Mah govt to form SIT to probe 'scam' in Edu & Rural Devt depts

The Maharashtra government today announced an SIT probe into the alleged scam in the School Education and Rural development departments, where fake recommendation letters were issued to teachers working under the Integrated Education for the Disabled Children scheme.
The IEDC scheme was stopped in 2009, leaving 595 teachers in the lurch. However, over fake letters were allegedly issued by officials from the Education and Rural Development departments to enable those teachers to work in the Zilla Parishad schools.
Congress MLC Chandrakant Raghuvanshi raised the issue in the Legislative Council through a calling attention motion.
"After shutting down the Centre's IEDC scheme, ideally, the 595 teachers, who were working as special teachers, should have been taken into the local bodies as primary teachers and helpers should have been given positions as peons at the local level," Raghuvanshi said.

"However, a few officials from the Rural Development and Education departments collected Rs 16-18 lakh from each candidate to issue the recommendation letters. Even after complaints received from various districts, no first information report (FIR) was filed," the legislator alleged.
He further claimed that the scam is to the tune of Rs 500-600 crore.

In his response, Education Minister Vinod Tawde announced that a special investigation team (SIT) will be set up under the DIG level officer to probe the alleged fraud.
"Issuing fake recommendation letters is an attempt to make the system corrupt. It is a serious issue and should be probed through SIT, which will comprise officers from police department, rural development and education departments. The SIT will be formed within a week," Tawde said.

He said the decision to close down the scheme was taken in 2009 and the state cabinet had decided to take these teachers into local bodies in rural areas.
However, there were differences between the number of teachers sanctioned to be merged and the government resolution (GR) issued by the department officials.
"The whole issue is murky and needs to be investigated in detail," the minister said.