One held for drawing ₹5L pay from schools

nLUCKNOW/AGRA: The Uttar Pradesh education department has begun a massive exercise of verifying the documents of 5,000 teachers after a woman suspected to have drawn over ₹5 lakh in salary from multiple schools was arrested in Kasganj on Saturday.

The suspect, who police said initially identified herself as Anamika Shukla, taught at the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) at Faridpur in Kasganj. Her alleged crime was discovered after education department authorities discovered her name appearing in more than one school.

“She was arrested from the BSA (basic shiksha adhikari) office when she had arrived to resign. A case has been registered at the Soron police station in Kasganj,” said Kasganj additional superintendent of police Pavitra Mohan Tripathi. “When questioned, she said her name was Anamika Shukla but later said it was Priya Singh. These facts are being investigated to ascertain her real identity. In her appointment letter of 2018, her name is Anamika Shukla and she claimed to be a resident of Kayamganj in Farrukhabad.”

The arrested woman told the press that she was working at the Faridpur school for the last 18 months. She claimed a person named Raj helped her get the job in exchange for money.

Confirming the arrest, basic education minister Satish Chand Dwivedi on Saturday said, “Our findings suggest a sum of ₹2.31 lakh was paid to Anamika in Ambedkar Nagar, ₹1.16 lakh in Saharanpur, ₹93,530 in Aligarh and ₹68,200 in Amethi. This matter came to light after the Yogi government decided to upload details of teachers’ attendance and salary on the web portal to minimise foul practices which had been going on for several decades.”

Dwivedi said the database of teachers on the Manav Sampada portal required personal records of teachers. Now, the process of verifying documents of all 5,000 teachers of KGBVS has started to check more such cases, the education department said.