The February and March salaries of school teachers in Nagaland have been held up because of excess withdrawal of over Rs 27 crore by Drawing and Disbursement Officers.
It was detected in February that there was a serious excess expenditure in the department, Additional Chief Secretary, School Education, Banuo Z Jamir said on Thursday.
It was found that the expenditure, mainly relating to salaries of teachers, was likely to overshoot the budget of the department for 2008-09 by Rs 27.15 crore, she said.
In view of such colossal excess requirements for salary, all DDOs having an increase in employees were asked to verify the reasons for such shortfall (in budget allocation).
Till internal verification was made, it was decided that no salary was to be released, she said.
Salaries from April onwards were paid as it fell in the new accounting year.
The witholding of salaries for two months had nothing to do with the probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the Vigilance Commission to investigate illegal appointment of teachers, she said.
Rao said "she was also pleased to know that Nagaland worked hard on its textbooks which had helped in bringing down the cost of the textbooks saying that the state might be looked upon as a resource in this context."
{{/usCountry}}Rao said "she was also pleased to know that Nagaland worked hard on its textbooks which had helped in bringing down the cost of the textbooks saying that the state might be looked upon as a resource in this context."
{{/usCountry}}She also underlined the need to look at how the management information system (MIS) in Nagaland could be utilized in local level and also to initiate discussions on management structure at the state and district levels and the need for convergence with departments of Health and Family Welfare and PHE to address related issues.
Chief consultant, SSA, Shailendra Sharma through a power point presentation gave an overview on the status of elementary education in Nagaland during the period from 2003-04 to 2008-09.
The team deliberated on issues such as attendance of children, prevention of drop-outs, strengthening management information system, use of data in local set-up and looking at other tools of surveys.