MULTAN, Aug 5: The district education department on Thursday issued notices to all the illegal users of motorbikes that were once part of the logistics of the defunct literacy drive, Nai Roshni Scheme.

The notices have been issued by Executive District Officer (Education) Nazeer Ahmad Chaudhry to the education department officials, who are currently in possession of the motorbikes. They have been asked to return these two-wheelers to the department before Aug 14 or face disciplinary action.

Sources in the department said the action could include suspension of salaries/pensions of the officials found guilty of keeping the NRS motorbikes illegally. As many as 28 motorbikes, which were meant to be used for monitoring the educational programme, had been missing for the last several years. The education department carried out an exercise to trace the motorbikes and succeeded.

Among the illegal users of the official two-wheelers are the director public instructions (elementary education), the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education chairman, executive district officers and principals.

The Nai Roshni Scheme was introduced by late Muhammad Khan Junejo in the 1980s to increase the literacy ratio. However, the scheme could not survive for long, as the succeeding governments bothered little about its success and it was eventually abandoned in 1991.