PUNE: The state school education department has flagged as many as 9,509 employees working beyond the sanctioned staffing strength in 3,625 schools across Maharashtra during a review of its Shalarth salary management system, raising questions over how these appointments were made without corresponding staffing approvals. So much so that the discrepancies have prompted the department to seek explanations from the concerned education officers and initiate a verification of employee records, sanctioned posts and salary approvals to prevent irregularities in the payment system.
The review revealed several other discrepancies in the system. “The discrepancies need to be verified at the school level and employee records must match the sanctioned staffing strength. Palkar and primary education director Sharad Gosavi issued instructions to deputy directors of education, education officers and salary section superintendents across the state on November 1, following a review meeting held through video conferencing on October 28. As many as 1,484 excess non-teaching employees have been found working in 1,206 schools. In 612 schools, posts have been sanctioned against which no employees have been found working. Furthermore, employee details are missing from both staffing approval records and the Shalarth system in another 3,642 schools. The department has also found that 842 schools have not received staffing approvals despite their employees being registered in the Shalarth system. In yet another discrepancy, 10,695 employees have been found not linked to their respective drawing and disbursing officer (DDO) codes, leaving their service status unresolved in the system.
We have directed the concerned officers to complete the verification and rectify errors so that there are no complications during salary processing,” Palkar said on Monday.
Secondary and higher secondary education director Mahesh Palkar said that the department is scrutinising discrepancies in employee records and staffing approvals to ensure that the Shalarth database accurately reflects the sanctioned strength of each school.
