Srinagar: At least Rs 400 crore sanctioned to the Jammu and Kashmir School Education Department under various Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) is lying unspent in the department.
This was disclosed by none other than the Principal Secretary of the department, Asgar Hassan Samoon on Friday.
Samoon, who took to Twitter to reveal the figures, directed the Project Director of the J&K Directorate of the Samagra Shiksha- the scheme under which the funds have been allocates to expedite the fund expenditure on ground within the next four weeks.
The Samagra Shiksha is essentially the merger of the erstwhile Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE) schemes and executes several government of India schemes in J&K including residential girls hostels for economically underprivileged girl students among others.
The unspent funds are currently lying with the Directors of School Education in Kashmir and Jammu, Chief Education Officers, Zonal Education Officers and even teachers at schools, Samoon said.
In absence of the said funds, the schemes are expected to have suffered badly.
Besides the Rs 400 crore unspent funds, a whopping Rs 870 crore released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) last year last year alone, are lying with the Finance Department, Samoon said, while asking Project Directorate Samagra Shiksha to pursue the release from the department.

Irshad Khan