State allots 15 crore to SSA

Statesman News Service

MALDA, March 7: The state has allotted Rs 15 crore to implement various programmes chalked out by the district for Sarba Shiksha Abhijan (SSA), education officials said.Out of the budget of Rs 72 crore for SSA in the current financial year nearly Rs 50 crore was allotted earlier. On Thursday, the state allotted Rs 15 crore to the district project officer (DPO) of the SSA.The DPO expected that the state would release the rest amount of Rs 7 crore by 31 March. The DPO has called a review meeting with the coordinators of the SSA on Monday to estimate the utilisation of the fund by 31 March.The district officials are facing difficulties to utilise the fund by 31 March due to late arrival since its inception.“We will hold a meeting with the officials concerned on Monday and will chalk out a plan to utilise the fund as much as possible by the end of the financial year after reviewing the position of the pending work”, Mr Chinmay Sarkar, the DPO of SSA said.“It is very difficult to chalk out a plan to utilise huge funds in a short time. At present we have planned to utilise the funds for construction of school building and infrastructure development of the schools and other compulsory programmes”, Mr Sarkar said.Mr Sarkar admitted that they were facing problems to allot funds to the schools for the construction of building because many schools did not submit fund utilisation certificates.“If school authorities do not submit utilisation certificates of funds allotted to them earlier, we can not allot fresh funds to them”,Mr Sarkar said.In the last SSA committee meeting it was found that the district was in no position to utilise more than Rs 10 crore. That fund was allotted for the salary of 784 teachers to be recruited newly through school service commission in the current financial year. But nearly 300 assistant teachers were recruited in September in this district.The district authorities prepared budget for the SSA of Rs 134 crore for the financial year 2008-09 and submitted it to the state on 29 February.