Riyaz Bhat
Srinagar, Aug 31: The Jammu and Kashmir School Education Department has miserably failed to spend over Rs 883 Crores released by the Government of India (GoI) in previous academic years—thus taking a toll on expansion of the sector and quality education.
The officials of the department said that the GoI has released over Rs 2100 Crores from the centre share that was not fully spent in the department.
Official documents available with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) reads, “The balance of the outlay of Rs 88333.97 lakh approved under non-recurring components in previous years, which is not spent fully is the outlay saved, spill over for the subsequent year 2020-21.”
The documents further reveal that “Against the spill-over, the committed liability of department of School Education and Literacy (SE&L) is Rs 35390.569 lakh.”
The total committed liability includes the funds of Rs 907.267 lakh for elementary education, Rs 33425.342 lakh for secondary and Rs 1057.96 lakh under teacher education after surrender.
“Keeping in view the total approvals and grants already released, the non-recurring grant will be released against the committed liabilities and the fresh approvals subject to the production of required documents by State, UTs and physical and financial progress of these interventions under the non-recurring head,” it reads.
Officials of the department said that the centre’s share is being released to the department of finance that accordingly distributes it to the respective departments.
“The finance departments have utilized the amount to some other works and did not release all funds to the education department,” the official said—(KNO)
