Money meant for valuers disappears, unpaid teachers suspect misuse

Nagpur: Even as the Nagpur University (NU) is yet to take any action in the case of missing cash from its confidential section, teachers have complained of unpaid dues for spot valuation (online and offline) and moderation. The delay in payments running into several lakhs is similar to the recent case of confidential section where paper setters haven’t been paid for years while their signatures were taken on prescribed form for disbursal.
Non-payment of valuers and moderators is surprising since spot centre chiefs are given advance amounts to pay for answersheet assessment soon after the work is complete. Crores of rupees are transferred into the director of examinations and evaluation’s account for meeting the expenses.

Later, the director issues cheques ranging between Rs50lakh and Rs1crore to spot chiefs because of the heavy workload. At a time, 200 valuers are deployed who are entitled for a pay of Rs600 (UG) and Rs1200 (PG) per day.

Vice chancellor SP Kane, finance and accounts officer Raju Hiwase and exam director Neeraj Khaty are silent on the issue just like the previous instances. They didn’t answer to TOI’s calls, smses and mails regarding the exam valuers’ dues.

An exam official told TOI that instant cash/cheque payments were started to speed up the work around four years ago. “The system was running smoothly for initial two years. Only in the last two years, several discrepancies are coming to fore,” the official said.

The NU has three chiefs of spot valuation who are assigned the exam work of the four faculties — Humanities, commerce, science and technology and interdisciplinary studies comprising lakhs of answer sheets. The engineering valuation centre was closed after a huge financial irregularity had surfaced.

Its chief Pramod Lakhe had failed to return Rs60lakh allotted to him as advances for exam works. It is learnt that Lakhe recently returned a bigger amount than what was initially pegged.

On Tuesday, valuers told TOI that they were paid for winter exam now while the money for summer is held back. The revelation comes against the backdrop of alleged misuse of exam section funds by officials have been found to be lending it at 5% interest to outsiders.

Unpaid valuers and moderators said it is possible that these funds could be put to other use. A valuer said, “I am from outside Nagpur. I was told to give my signature and that the dues would be transferred to my bank account or through cheque. When I enquired now, they say they haven’t received the funds. We know they get advances and the money can’t disappear. Perhaps, it is kept in the account so that some interest is accrued on it,” he said.

A moderator said generally most of them get paid sooner or later. “But the question is what is done with the huge amount after it is withdrawn,” the moderator said.