Imphal, December 09 2009: Inspite of adequate funding from the Central Government, inefficiency in implementation coupled with failure to furnish utilisation certificate is said to have cost the State about Rs 300 crore worth of welfare programmes under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan project for a cumulative period of five years.

According to an informed source, the centre had been providing regular and adequate funds for implementation of SSA programmes in the State ever since the UPA Government's flagship project was launched in 2004-05 .

However, the Central Government assistance could not be translated into actual work to its potential thereby resulting in the State of Manipur losing out huge amount on a yearly basis as implementation of the SSA projects had not been upto the mark the state mechanism failure further exposed due to non-submission of utilisation certificates as specified.

It is also informed that poor performance of the State Government in the implementation of SSA projects had led to total cessation of fund for the 2008-09 fiscal which was preceded by an audit report in 2007-08 that clearly listed SSA project executions in Manipur as 'unsatisfactory'.

The source, nevertheless, confided that as a consequence of the Centre noting failure of SSA works in manipur the State Government, as a redressal measure, has chalked out a pro-active policy to ensure proper and efficient implementation of the noble scheme.

On the otherhand, with the audit reports for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 financial years having been completed the State is confident of meeting the deadline of December 15 set by the Central Government for submission of the reports, the source maintained.

Significantly, for effective implementation of the SSA projects in the current financial year (2009-10) the state Government has also worked out a policy to release relevant funds directly at the accounts of schools concerned so as to ensure there is no diversion or misuse of the Central fund.

Explaining on a comparative fund allocation regarding Manipur getting only Rs 52.88 crores for implementing SSA programme whereas Meghalaya has been provided Rs 198 crores, the source said this disparity is due to differences in the performance between the two NE States with the Central government apparently rewarding Meghalaya for its efficiency.

Under the funding this fiscal, Government of Manipur has covered 3856 primary schools and 1477 upper-primary schools, the source added.

For periodical updating and profiling on the number of school children who are supposed to get benefit of the SSA project with regard to village/ward of every district, the national Informatics Centre is informed to have developed a software.

In order to maintain relevant information of all the children in the age-group of 6-14 years, 'village education registers' have been printed and its enforcement would be taken up at the earliest, said the source.

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