School board rubbishes harassment claims

Officials of the education board of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Friday refuted all charges made by PMC school teacher Rakhi Raskar, of alleged harassment and out-of-turn transfer.

In a press conference held in the city, the officials said they had been victimised by the teacher, not vice versa. They also refuted all claims of corruption in disbursing scholarships, as claimed by certain parents, saying all money received had been given out.
On October 12, DNA had published a story 'I pay price for being whistleblower' in which Raskar claimed that authorities at the municipal school in Dattawadi were steeped in corruption and she was transferred for protesting against it.

Shashikala Mandekar, ex-principal of the school, and the entire teaching staff accompanied by PMC's deputy education officer, Shubhangi Chavan, told DNA that an internal inquiry on the complaints regarding corruption had already proved them wrong.

"We had scholarship money for students studying between 2005-09, just a few months ago. By then, the students had passed out of school and it became difficult to trace them. While most students were given the money, 18 students couldn't be traced and their scholarships were returned to the social welfare department," Chavan said. She said that an application would be made to the social welfare department to re-issue the funds.

The teachers have also rubbished the claims made by Raskar that a peon who had political connections influenced her transfer.

"The teacher (Raskar) had said that peon dried clothes in the classroom. Why did she not bring it to our notice? This teacher would often pick fights with this peon and later got transferred earlier as well. This is just personal enmity," said a teacher.
Rohini Bargase, supervisor for PMC-run schools in Dattawadi area, said Raskar was inefficient and troublesome. "She would object to us conducting surprise inspections and force us to give her good remarks even though her classes were always empty," she claimed.

"Raskar never maintained progress sheets of students. Her students failed miserably in random tests conducted by us and all other teachers would complain about her laziness and uncooperative attitude," Bargase added.