KARACHI, May 31: About 93,000 girl students of middle schools in the city finally proceeded to a two-month summer vacation on Saturday without being delivered any cheque pertaining to scholarship that was promised by the provincial government in June 2002.

Sources in the city government’s education department said that despite efforts, office of the EDO (Education) could not get the scholarship fund, amounting to the tune of Rs45 million, released by the office of the AG Sindh.

After a long official wrangling, the EDO office submitted bills to the AG office about 20 days back, but to no avail, added the sources.

In line with the government’s declaration made on the occasion of the previous budget, middle schools’ girl students at Karachi, like elsewhere in the province, were to get Rs1,000 each in instalments as a 10-month scholarship with effect from August 2002 as an incentive for continuing the secondary school education.

The first instalment of the total amount of the fund, sanctioned for the scholarship, was transferred to the DCO of the city government in October last year. The DCO moved late and decided to issue a cheque of Rs27.94 million in the name of EDO (Education) only in January. However, that cheque was returned by SBP due to non-availability of the fund.

According to the city government source, there was some confusion over the placement of the funds in question. At some stage it was said that the amount was lumped with the non-salary component, while there was another stance that the amount was credited to the PLA account-IV of the education department.

Senior teachers at schools termed the non-payment of scholarship amount to students ‘a serious lapse’ on the part of the government functionaries, including the DCO and the EDO.

Karachi-based students failed to get a single rupee from the promised funds and by the time the things are rectified, as claimed by the authorities, the whole configuration of students registered at classes VI to VIII for the financial year 2002-2003 would change and, thus, many deserving girl students could be deprived of whatever little amount was sure to land in their accounts, the teachers regretted.

Technically, students should have already received the scholarships for the months of August 2002 to May 2003. However, as they have proceeded to vacation, the new financial year will already have commenced by the time they will return.

The EDO (Education) office source had said that his department had already returned the first cheque to the finance and planning department of the city government, while under the directives of the high ups, two separate bills pertaining to Rs28 million and Rs17 million had also been submitted to the AG Sindh office. The matter is pending as the AG office has sought a specific clarification on the issue, added the source.