BIRGUNJ, FEBRUARY 18
It has come to light that a few schools in Parsa haven't got the free cycles they were promised by the provincial government under 'Chief Minister Educate Girls, Save Girl' programme.
As per sources, three schools in Jirabhawani Rural Municipality-3 have yet to get free cycles after CM Lalbabu Raut's personal secretary Deepak Yadav had made such promise and received in advance a document vouching for the schools receiving the cycles.
Nepal Rastriya Fundamental School of Ward No 1 Shree Bito Mahato Janata Secondary School of Ward No 3 and Shree Saraswoti Fundamental School of Ward No 5 had got the assurance from Yadav for free cycles.
"He (the CM's personal secretary) promised that he would provide us cycles and asked us to issue a receipt on our school's official letter pad in advance saying they had to manage some official record; it's already been three months, but we haven't got the cycles promised," said Bito Mahato school principal Rama Shankar Prasad Chaudhary.
Interestingly, CM's personal secretary is not supposed to have the power or right to make any sort of interference in any programmes or campaigns run by the provincial government just because of his official capacity.
Further, Chaudhary informed that the chief minister's secretary didn't even answer their calls these days. "In the early days, he would say we would get the promised cycles in a week or so; these days he doesn't even answer our calls," he said.
Nepal Rastriya school principal Kripasindhu Prasad Patawari said he was fed up with dealing with the questions of the students who had got their names registered for the free cycles.
"We have got what he called a token but no cycles," he said, adding he didn't know when they would get the cycles pledged to them.
It is worth mentioning that the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority had launched a raid in the Chief Minister's office on September 29 last year citing irregularities in Chief Minister's Educate Girls, Save Girls. As learnt, in the wake of the raid, all the schools that had put in to the office for free cycles were called to District Coordination Committee and cajoled into issuing receipts for the cycles in advance.
As per sources, a total of 83 cycles were promised to the three schools. The cost of each of the cycle is mentioned as 7,000 rupees.
There are doubts that similar cases might be in other schools as well in the district.
A version of this article appears in the print on February 19, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
