JAGATSINGHPUR: Around Rs 30 lakh meant for eco-clubs formed in Jagatsinghpur schools to conduct various environmental awareness activities has been allegedly misappropriated by district officials.
Sources said out of 1,593 schools in the district, eco-clubs are functioning in only 250 of eight blocks and two municipalities. The State Government pays Rs 2,500 to every school annually for financing the activities of these clubs. Of that, Rs 200 should be spent for purchasing a notice board and Rs 300 for buying equipment such as shovels and pots required for planting saplings. The rest of the money should be spent on purchasing registers to record the activities of the clubs, distributing prizes to winners of drawing, elocution and essay writing competitions conducted by the clubs, taking photographs of the events and buying refreshments for the children.
The aim of establishing the clubs is to create awareness among students to protect the environment, understand the ills of environmental pollution, encourage them to contribute to prevention of global warming and teach them waste management. At least 50 students in each school-level club are divided into five groups and made to focus on different themes such as water management, land management (maintaining gardens and planting saplings), preventing air pollution, energy management and waste management.
Preferring anonymity, several headmasters claims that eco-clubs in majority of the schools are not functioning because of lack of effective monitoring and delay in disbursement of the annual fund. These clubs are more involved in organising activities related to World Environment Day, World Population Day and so on, they said.
Besides, Forest and Environment Department provides Rs 1.4 lakh to each District Environment Society (DES) annually to meet the expenditure towards environmental activities. But the fund for the last few years has been allegedly misused by the district officials using fake vouchers. There are also allegations of large scale irregularities in formation of DES where lakhs of rupees have been reportedly siphoned off by the district officials.
Sources said under the amended laws of the society in 2009, Deputy Collector will act as district coordinator for the DES. However, ignoring the Deputy Collector, the DES has designated a retired teacher as its coordinator since 2009. Though Cuttack and Rajnagar Divisional Forest Officers, District Agriculture Officer and Jagatsinghpur Horticulturist have been nominated as the members of the society, they have never attended the meetings of the DES, sources alleged.
Deputy Collector (environment) Rashmi Ranjan Das feigned ignorance about irregularities in expenditure of funds meant for eco-clubs and DES.
Collector Yamini Sarangi said, “The district administration is aware of financial irregularities to the tune of `30 lakh in eco-clubs and DES. The Additional District Magistrate (ADM) has been asked to verify the utilisation certificate (UC) of the funds. Steps will be taken in this regard after verification.”