Andhra Pradesh

SSA: House panel chief pulls up official

PHOTO: S Rambabu

Chairman of Assembly Committee on Sarva Siksha Abhiyan Nadendla Manohar at Social Welfare Residential School at Sambamurthy Nagar in Kakinada on Wednesday. —

Kakinada: Chairman of Assembly Committee on Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) Nadendla Manohar took a serious view of lapses in implementation of SSA in the district after assessing the performance of the officials concerned on Wednesday. He inspected the SSA records and had extracted other details from the SSA additional coordinator D.N Murthy during closed door deliberations.

Mr. Manohar had reportedly recommended suspension of the SSA additional coordinator for his alleged failure to discharge duties properly. However, during his interaction with the media personnel, Mr. Manohar did not reveal whether he had actually decided to take Mr. Murthy to task and if so what sort of action was contemplated.

The large-scale irregularities in execution of SSA are being inquired at the State-level by the Vigilance and Enforcement Wing and other departments. It is therefore inappropriate for me at this stage to make any comment where the investigations are headed, he quipped. While Mr. Manohar said he had examined some confidential files of the SSA, he is learnt to have taken a few records with him for further scrutiny at the highest-level. But he was not forthcoming on what his course of action would be.

``I have looked into the manner in which the funds sanctioned for SSA in the district till now (Rs. 160 crore) was utilized and certain lapses in the same,” he added. Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi and other district officials were present when the Assembly committee was scouring through the numerous files in SSA office. Mr. Manohar and his team had earlier inspected some schools and expressed dissatisfaction at the poor infrastructure facilities that greeted them.

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