Deogarh: The aim with which Sarva Siksha Abhiyan was launched in Deogarh seems to have been defeated given the way the district project coordinator office at Purunagarh is functioning here these days.
It is alleged that the employees, from higher ups to lower rung, come to this office at their own suitable time with complete disregard to the government-fixed office schedule.
According to several sources, there are three field staff out of total 17 employees working at the DPC office. The post of DPC is lying vacant. District education officer (DEO) Pradosh Nayak is in charge of DPC here.
Since Nayak is dividing his time between two offices, he can hardly devote time to DPC office. With having no officer to keep a watch on them, the employees are allegedly coming to the office as per their wish.
The biometric attendance system is not working here. It is alleged that the staff tampered with the machine out of ill intention.
Some of the employees come to work at 11:00am and some at 12 noon. There are employees who remain absent from their duties for three to four days at a stretch. But they are marked present on all days.
This correspondent visited the DPC office at 11:00am and found the seats in almost all the chambers were vacant. Upon investigation, it was known that most of the staff were still to come. Some chambers were even found to be locked. Signatures were also not found against some names in the attendance registers.
If staff at the DPC office are playing truant, it can well be guessed how the teachers are loyal to their duties.
Programme Assistant Sashank Shekhar Choudhury is alleged to be not coming to the office regularly. A source said, he prefers making money from the business of uniform that is being supplied to students. It is alleged that Choudhury is using his power of seat to intimidate the teachers to get his business done.
When asked, Choudhury refuted the allegations terming them as baseless. “I am punctual to my duty. I am never ever associated with any uniform deal. My father has a cloth store at Riamal. He is supplying uniforms to schools,” he clarified.
If a programme assistant’s father is supplying uniforms to schools, can the former remain uninvolved, a senior citizen asked. The staff here preferred to keep mum when asked how the biometric attendance system went out of order and why it was still not repaired.
The senior citizens were of the opinion that if the district administration or the vigilance department does a suo motu inquiry, many startling revelations will come to the fore.
PNN