Tamil Nadu - Erode   

Schools go without power

PHOTO: M. GOVARTHAN

No power: Payment of electricity consumption charges pending in panchayat union schools. —

ERODE: Elementary education wing of the State Education Department recently gave television sets and DVD players to all panchayat union and municipality schools.

The Department provided the equipment along with compact disks with educational content to help the students learn better. What the Department did not give the schools, though, was money to pay electricity bills.

A July 2008 letter from M. Kutralingam, Secretary to the Government, says the amount the schools across the State have not paid the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008 is Rs. 47.07 lakh. Of the sum, Erode district alone accounts for Rs. 2.7 lakh.

The Rs. 47.07 lakh, however, tells only half the story because it is the amount the schools have not paid. The actual sum the schools should have the paid the TNEB in the last financial year is a little over Rs. 2 crore.

The difference between the actual sum Rs. 2,00,94,462 and paid amount Rs. 47,07,232 is Rs. 1.53 crore, which the heads of the schools paid from their pocket.

A panchayat union middle school headmaster told The Hindu on conditions of anonymity that the heads of the institutions bore the Rs. 1,53,87,230 following an oral instruction from the Department, which promised to the repay the amount.

This is reflected in Mr. Kutralingam’s letter, which mentions the amount pending. In Erode the heads of over 1,600 panchayat union and municipal schools have paid Rs. 11,14,980.

The Education Department’s failure to pay the electricity bill so far has to do with panchayat unions rescinding paying the amount. The panchayat unions’ decision follows a December 2007 Rural Development and Panchayat Department order, which says: The electrification and payment of current consumption charges for buildings constructed by the Department but used by other departments, which include school buildings, PDS shops, noon meal centres, VAO office buildings, health sub-centres, kitchen sheds, milk producers’ cooperative society buildings, etc., should be that of the user department on the ‘user should pay’ principle. In Erode, 1,569 panchayat union and municipality elementary and middle schools have been affected because of the order. A good number of the schools are without power.

Asked about the Education Department’s failure to pay electricity bill, District Elementary Education Officer A. Sakthivel said the Government had disbursed Rs. 1.5 lakh in the first phase. He said he would use the amount to first clear the arrears of the schools that are without power and then look at paying the headmaster or headmistress, who have borne the expenses. He promised to clear the dues at the earliest.

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