While releasing the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) in January this year, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar had claimed that his ministry found 80,000 fake teachers through Aadhaar, terming them as ‘ghost’ teachers.
When Right To Information (RTI) activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johari filed a plea to seek information from the Department of Higher Education, HRD Ministry, regarding investigations and actions against these fake teachers and their colleges, the government’s response failed to back Javedkar’s claim.
Yet another false claim of savings due to Aadhaar? @PrakashJavdekar said 80,000 bogus teachers detected through Aadhaar. Reply to RTI shows MHRD unable to furnish any evidence to back the claim. Unable to provide names of bogus teachers & institutions where they were employed 1/2 pic.twitter.com/FhGC8cubk7
— Anjali Bhardwaj (@AnjaliB_) May 11, 2018
.@HRDMinistry says it has no info on inquiry set up & action taken against those responsible for fraud. Who was paying salaries to 80,000 bogus teachers? Why is ministry not punishing anyone for misapropriating public funds? Claims of savings only for #Aadhaar propoganda? 2/2 pic.twitter.com/Ukv0la7AmK
— Anjali Bhardwaj (@AnjaliB_) May 11, 2018
Strange clarification by govt on RTI exposé regarding @PrakashJavdekar claim of bogus teachers detected due to #Aadhaar. Why did minister state teachers are bogus without checking for ‘incorrect entries’? Clearly claims of savings due to Aadhaar don’t stand up to scrutiny. pic.twitter.com/HnCESLp2XD
— Anjali Bhardwaj (@AnjaliB_) May 13, 2018
In its RTI reply, HRD ministry stated that the data of teachers with Adhaar numbers, collected by the Gurujan portal (gurujan.gov.in) in All India Survey On Higher Education 2016-17, revealed 85,708 base numbers to be duplicate or invalid. However, the government denied the state-wise number of fake teachers, the names of those teachers and their college or university names.
Despite the Centre’s claim that around 80,000 fake teachers have been found in the country, neither has any investigation been done in this matter nor has any action been taken so far. The Higher Education Department replied that they did not have any such information.
Anjali Bharadwaj says the HRD Ministry could not provide any substantial evidence or information in support of the Union Minister’s claim to detect fake teachers, implying that it is unaware of the existence of ‘ghost teachers’. If there are 80 thousand fake teachers in the country, who is giving them salaries? Why has the Ministry not made any inquiry or action against those responsible for employing bogus teachers?
In February 2017, PM Narendra Modi declared in Lok Sabha that the government had detected 3.95 crore bogus ration cards because of Aadhaar. Later, an RTI filed by Hindustan Times found that neither the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) nor the department of food public distribution could clarify how they stumbled about this number.
