Puri school headmasters face salary withholding over unsubmitted safety programme UCs

Puri: Salaries for Jan of 72 govt school headmasters in Puri district will be withheld for failing to submit utilisation certificates (UCs) related to student safety awareness programmes.An official order on Thursday said the headmasters concerned will not be paid their Jan salaries due to non-compliance. District education officer (DEO) Deepak Kumar Padhee said instructions have been communicated to the respective schools through official letters.Padhee said schools had earlier been instructed to organise student awareness programmes on lightning safety and first aid for snakebite cases.

Each school was provided Rs 2,000 for lightning awareness and Rs 2,500 for snakebite awareness activities, with submission of UCs made mandatory after completion of the programmes.However, despite repeated reminders and lapse of the deadline, several schools failed to submit the required expenditure reports, forcing the department to initiate disciplinary action, he said.Of the total, salaries of headmasters from 38 schools were withheld for non-submission of UCs related to lightning awareness programmes.

These schools are located in Brahmagiri (1), Delang (3), Gop (7), Kanas (6), Kakatpur (2), Krushnaprasad (2), Nimapada (7), Puri Sadar (9) and Satyabadi (1) blocks.Similarly, salaries of headmasters from 34 schools were withheld for failing to submit UCs for snakebite awareness programmes. These schools are spread across Delang (1), Gop (4), Kakatpur (5), Kanas (5), Krushnaprasad (3), Nimapada (7), Pipili (1) and Puri Sadar (8) blocks.Padhee said the move was aimed at ensuring accountability in the utilisation of public funds and the effective implementation of critical safety awareness programmes for students.