CAG raps Karnataka government as schools charged Rs 345 crore excess during Covid

Belagavi: Private schools in Karnataka charged students an excess of Rs 345.80 crore during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020-21 in violation of court orders, the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) said, pulling up the government for lacking any fee regulation.

The department of school education and literacy does not have any method to “monitor the quantum of fees and monies collected by the private unaided institutions”, the CAG said in its report on the functioning of primary educational institutions, which was tabled in the Assembly on Thursday.

The CAG noted that due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the Karnataka High Court had directed private schools in the state to provide a 15 per cent fee discount for the 2020-21 academic year. Accordingly, in November 2021, the department asked schools to collect only 85 per cent of tuition fees collected during 2019-20 for the 2020-21 session.

This impacted the affordability of education for students in private schools, the CAG said. “Absence of oversight” has resulted in violations of fee regulations, the audit added.

Further, the CAG was critical of the government for not bringing online schools under a regulatory framework, which it said creates divide and disparity.

No supply of Covid drugs

The CAG found that Covid-19 drugs worth Rs 17.79 crore were not supplied to the government at the end of March 2022. In all, the government had placed orders for drugs worth Rs 665 crore. There was a delay ranging from one to 252 days in supplying drugs worth Rs 415 crore. Similarly, there was a delay up to 217 days to supply equipment worth Rs 288 crore. Audit wasn’t given supply details for equipment worth Rs 405 crore.

Missing monuments

The CAG found that at least 19 of 94 notified monuments, which were selected for physical verification, were missing. This included prehistoric and neolithic sites, temples, inscriptions and a fort whose locations were not found. “One monument listed as a fort at Gandharvagad (Khanapur, Belagavi) is actually situated in Maharashtra. This indicated a lackadaisical approach in maintaining accurate locations of the monuments,” the CAG said. There are 844 monuments protected under the state government.

Rs 649 cr loss to BMTC

The BMTC lost “possible additional traffic revenue” of Rs 649.74 crore due to non-revision of fares since 2014-15, the CAG said. According to the audit, the BMTC petitioned the government five times between 2017 and 2022 seeking a fare revision. The cost per passenger in 2017 was Rs 1.45, which rose to Rs 2.43 by 2021-22, the audit said.