MUMBAI: Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Friday said that 2,500 government-aided schools would be booked for allegedly enrolling students who turned out to be fake during inspection carried out by the State Education Department.
The findings of the inspection were startling as 1.5-lakh students in aided schools appeared to be fake.
As state grants for the schools depend on the number of students in each institute, the schools benefited by fraudulently inflating the number to get more grants.
According to the list of bogus students available, the estimated loss to the state was pegged at Rs 2,500 crore. Nanded district, from where former CM Ashok Chavan hails, is the worst culprit with 17.71 per cent students found to be fake.
The loss to the state made by Nanded district alone is Rs 150 crore. The state has made a budgetary provision of Rs 27,000 crore per annum for supporting the education of students studying in aided schools.
The 2,500 schools, whose management including the principal and trustees, would be booked for cheating are those where quantum of fake students is 50 per cent and above.
The state education department is planning biometric attendance to root out this menace. There is now no clarity whether there would be individual FIRs or one consolidated FIR to be lodged by the state education department.