RTE assistance has been denied to students at Solaris Public School on Ahmedabad’s Sola Road after the school allegedly failed to upload their details to the government portal, prompting the District Education Officer (DEO), Ahmedabad City West, to issue a show-cause notice to the school principal.
The issue came to light after the parent of one student complained through the Chief Minister’s Jansamvad portal that the annual assistance had not been credited. The complaint led the DEO West office to investigate the school’s records and portal entries, according to the report by Nav Gujarat Samay – Ahmedabad.
The inquiry found that entries for the school’s RTE students had not been made on the government portal by the school management and principal. As a result, the names of the students did not appear in the system and no RTE student enrolled at Solaris Public School received the assistance for the current academic year, the report said.
Under the RTE scheme, the state government provides annual assistance of ₹3,000 to students admitted under the law. The amount is transferred directly to the student’s or parent’s bank account and is intended to support the purchase of uniforms, footwear, socks and educational materials.
The reported lapse has occurred even as more than 80,000 RTE students studying in schools across Ahmedabad’s eastern and western areas have already received the assistance for the current year. The difference between those payments and the situation at Solaris Public School has highlighted the role of school-level data submission in connecting eligible students to government support.
The DEO notice refers to provisions under the RTE Act and states that a fine of ₹10,000 may apply in the first instance of such an irregularity, while subsequent irregularities may attract a penalty of ₹25,000 each. The notice asks why a penalty of ₹10,000 per student should not be imposed on Solaris Public School.
The school principal has been directed to appear at the DEO office on Monday at 11am with the necessary documents and evidence and provide an explanation. The notice warns that if the principal does not appear at the scheduled time, the department may proceed on the basis that the school has no explanation to offer and initiate action under the applicable rules.
The report does not state whether the assistance will be released to the affected students before the department completes its proceedings. The immediate administrative questions are whether the school’s portal entries can be corrected and how the students’ pending assistance will be processed.
