Some CET venue officers claimed Rs 70,000 airfare each

NAGPUR: While the state department of higher education is tight-lipped about reimbursement of airfares to over 78 CET venue officers, it has come to fore that some of them had spent around Rs70,000 on round trips to exam centres outside Maharashtra for both 2018 and 2019 MAH-CETs (LLB).
Sources said this could be the reason the department has found itself in a fix and held up the payments for the last one year. They said while allowing economy class airfare for outside Maharashtra travel, the department made a mistake of not putting a cap on the amount that can be claimed.
Since the department has failed to provide records regarding claims, TOI estimated the amount to be at least around Rs31 lakh for both the exams. Now it appears it could be higher.
On learning of TOI reports, some VOs from different parts of the state informed they had incurred around Rs70,000 which they felt was unjustified for the task assigned to them. “As teachers, we are not suppposed to tell the adminstration even if something is wrong,” they said.
Authorities are dilly dallying and not disclosing the exact reason for the delay in reimbursement.
On Friday, TOI mailed a questionnaire to director and the joint director of higher education regarding the entire episode. The queries were posed after TOI’s repeated calls and SMS didn’t evoke any response from director Dhanraj Mane and joint director Archana Nerkar.
The state CET cell too has been making flip-flops in dealing the issue. On July 3, the cell had told TOI instructions were already given for NEFT transfers. Though the online transfers don’t take more than a couple of hours, VOs said they never received the amount in their bank accounts on July 5.
Besides, the cell had indicated that some bogus claims were made by VOs and have been detected during the audit. The higher education department too has not enclosed orders of appointment in some cases. Cell commissioner Anand Rayate said they have cleared all claims in which there was no dispute.
VOs, who are assistant professors at government colleges, said there was several ways the mess could have been avoided. “The CET cell or government could have tied up with an airline and directly done the financial dealings. On seeing such high claims, they are questioning our integrity,” they said.