STF tracks down 26 more ‘Anamikas’ who fraudulently bagged teaching jobs

LUCKNOW: After the TOI expose blew the lid off a teacher, Anamika Shukla, who was on the payroll of 25 government schools and drew Rs 1crore in 10 months, the special task force of Uttar Pradesh have tracked down 26 more ‘Anamikas’, who are ineligible to be teachers, but raked in huge salaries by impersonating serving teachers and using their educational degrees to land the job.
This could just be the tip of a multi-crore scam, involving several officials in the education department.

Fitting the stereotypical Munnabhai mould, at least 13 teachers fudged identities and fraudulently submitted documents of genuine teachers in faraway districts to escape detection, while 10 scammers fudged certificates to match high-scoring candidates and the remaining three secured fake government transfer orders to bag a teacher’s job in far-flung districts. And they were aided, abetted and tipped off by middlemen hand in glove with stenographers of basic shiksha adhikaris (BSAs) for huge kickbacks, said an UP STF official. BSAs of respective districts have also been asked to lodge FIRs against these 26 persons. As per seventh pay commission, newly inducted teachers receive a starting salary of Rs 40,000 and those with experience are paid Rs 70,000.
UP STF had launched operations to nab tricksters
At least seven of these fake teachers have been serving and withdrawing lakhs of rupees as salary for over 20 years, two of them were employed for 15 years and 12 others for 10 years, draining state coffers of crores of rupees. One of them has been working in Deoria district since 1995 and is scheduled to retire next year and another from Balrampur and two from Maharajganj have been teaching for as long as 23 years.
Earlier, UPSTF had launched multiple operations to nab tricksters employed with educational documents of serving teachers. In 2018, three fraudsters were arrested in Sitapur for drawing salaries for five years on documents of one Abhay Lal, who was simultaneously serving in Gorakhpur.
Last year, sleuths busted a gang involving a steno, Harendra Kumar Singh of Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA), Basti, along with a Shiksha Mitra, Sachidanand Pandey, and three others. Harendra ran a job scam by using documents of genuine government teachers. Since 2018, STF has arrested as many as 253 teachers who secured jobs on documents of genuine teachers and registered 126 FIRs in coordination with Basic Shiksha Adhikaris. Inspector General of police, STF, Amitabh Yash told TOI that, “STF has on several occasions written to the government to create a database of teachers and verify them through an independent body.”