Employees at District Education Office, Rautahat, have been charged with irregularities in appointing the supervisors meant to inspect different literacy campaigns aimed to achieve cent per cent literacy in the district, as a part of the national movement. The office had launched various informal educational programmes to make all the illiterate in the district literate. “As many as 594 supervisors were recruited from 73 VDCs of the district this year for the supervision of the programmes, but they were appointed without meeting the criteria set by the government,” complained locals. Shyam Chandra Jha, a local activist, alleged nepotism, disregard for competence, experience and qualification.

Hence, the campaign is likely to be useless in the district, he argued. The supervisor’s quota has been shared among schools, police administration, non-governmental organisations, government employees and media persons. As many as 219 teachers’ quotas, including three teachers each from 73 schools, 146 quotas for police — two from each VDC, 81 persons — three candidate each from 27 non-governmental organisations, 50 for state employees were allocated. A similar number of the quota was allocated for the Federation of Nepali Journalists Rautahat chapter, but the federation refused the proposal. “As supervisors have been recruited on the basis of quota sharing, the campaign is most likely to fail,” said FNJ Rautahat chapter Chairman Shailendra Gupta. Security personnel and state employees, who are deployed to manage security and provide various administrative and other services to people were included in the campaign illegitimately by the DEO. It is an incomplete violation of the law of the land, said Gupta. However, Nanda Kishor Gupta, the resource person of the campaign claimed that the office had appointed supervisors as per the code. “The office has fairly recruited candidates and it’s pointless doubting their appointments,” he argued.