DERA GHAZI KHAN, April 30: The World Food Programme, which is meant to improve attendance of primary school girl students and teachers by providing them an incentive in the form of cooking oil once in a month , is allegedly being mishandled by the education department authorities.

The project has failed to achieve its objectives because the attendance in the schools is not improved. It is learnt that the officials of the department are selling oil tins privately.

The project was introduced in 1997 by offering an incentive to the primary schoolchildren. Around 18,131 students of 120 primary girl schools (76 in Dera Ghazi Khan tehsil and 44 in Taunsa Sharif) were beneficiaries of the project.

However, the students of primary schools in tribal area were not included in the project for the reasons best known to the higher-ups. When contacted, District Officer (elementary education) Mrs Farhat Niaz said the distribution process of oil was going on smoothly and the department never received any complaint of irregularity.

Responding to the a question, she said the oil recipients often sold it in the open market and no teacher or employee of the department was involved in it. She said the project's country chief had visited the district and appreciated the smooth distribution of oil. She said she had been supervising the project since 2000.

It is pertinent to mention that there are many ghost schools (only existing on paper) in the list of 120 schools. The district education department received 307 metric tons of cooking oil this year to be distributed among primary school girl students.

The newly posted EDO (education) told this correspondent that he was taking stock of the situation and would ensure distribution of cooking oil among the deserving.