RTE suffered due to poor planning, delay in funds: CAG

New Delhi: The CAG has pointed out that poor planning, continuing vacancies and delay in release and utilisation of funds made the implementation of Right to Education (RTE) Act suffer in the national capital.

In the report, the CAG revealed that “a performance audit conducted from 2010-16 brought out that effective implementation of the Act suffered due to poor planning and preparation, continuing vacancies as well as delay in release of funds and its utilisation”.

“The government failed to complete the mandatory household survey to collect and maintain a database of all children from their birth till they attain the age of 14 years and link it with mapping of schools for the purpose of determining and establishing neighbourhood schools,” it said.

The CAG has noted that there was delay and short release of funds by the HRD ministry and the directorate of education to the “Universalisation of Elementary Education Mission”.

It even revealed that enrolment in Class 1 in the government and aided schools decreased by 23 per cent from 2,04,884 in 2010-11 to 1,56,911 in 2015-16.

“In unaided schools of the directorate, only 90,262 children belonging to weaker section and disadvantaged group were admitted against 1,45,142 seats which should have been reserved for them during 2011-16. 69 to 81 per cent of construction works of classrooms, halls, toilets and boundary walls remained unexecuted in North and South mun-icipal corporations,” the CAG report said.

Other anomalies pointed out in the CAG report include non-utilisation of sanctioned funds for construction of additional rooms and toilets in MCD schools, 22 per cent of sanctioned posts of teachers and librarians being vacant, uniforms, textbooks and writing materials not being distributed to all students of 34 selected Delhi Municipal Corporations (DMC) schools and ineffective monitoring of implementation of the RTE Act.