TMC's scholarship cheque bounces, more than 35 students affected

THANE: The Thane Municipal Corporation's education Department has once again come into the limelight for their careless and irresponsible work. This time, the issue is regarding the scholarship cheques bouncing and affecting several students. Almost 35 students who were awarded with the Backward Class Scholarship and Good Attendance Scholarship by the TMC are bearing the brunt.
After the State Government initiated a Scholarship scheme in its schools, the TMC Also followed the pattern and started a Scholarship scheme in all its schools to boost the student's attendance.The scholarship was also started to encourage the backward class with education.
The TMC's Samaj Vikas Department and Education Department together took the initiative to run this scheme and started the scheme last year, in the year 2008. But unfortunately the scheme has turned to be de-motivating for the students and their parents as the cheques issued for the students towards their scholarships have bounced.
As per the scheme, the TMC started the two scholarships, one for the Backward class students who score good marks and another for the students who regularly attend the schools. Under theses schemes, the TMC is supposed to give Rs 1,000 as part of scholarship to the backward class students and Rs 1,500 to the students who attend school for more than 240 days. ��
Thus acting as per the schemes, the TMC recently allotted the corresponding cheques to the students. The TMC handed over 1,979 cheques to the Backward class students of Rs 1,000 each and 1,203 cheques of Rs 1,500 each to the students with good attendance. The overall cost of these cheques is worth Rs 40 lakh. But, now, some of the cheques out of the ones that were rewarded to the students have bounced and given only disappointment.
Suresh Gada, Chairman of the Civic-education department agreed the case and clarifies that, "We accept that the parents who are facing this problem are in trouble due to our scholarship cheques, as they have bounced and are not cleared in the banks. We got to know about this just two days back when one of the parents complaint about it and now we are looking into the matter."��
"We received the scholarship funds from the state government and as per the funds our Samaj Vikas Department issued the cheques some months ago. But, now we have come to know that the Samaj Vikas Department issued the cheque with the date of 31 March 2009. Once we received the cheques, we allotted them to our students after September 18. As the cheques have standard validity of six months some of the cheques have bounced creating problem."��
"We allotted some of the cheques as barer and some as crossed cheques. When parents approached the banks with barer cheques, the bank refused these outdated cheques. The issue is purely due to the Samaj Vikas Department's delay and we are not responsible for it," Gada concluded.��
Officers from the Samaj Vikas Department denied the claim. S Patole, officer from Samaj Vikas Department informed that, "We handed over the cheques in time, as soon as we received the funds. The delay has been from the education department's end in handing over. The previous in charge of the education department was responsible for this as he did not forward the cheques to the students."��
On condition of anonymity, a highly placed officer from civic-education department informed that, "Though the education department claims that there are only 10-15 such cases the actual number is more than 35. We received many calls about the same issue but as there are elections, we are now under pressure."