KalingaTimes Correspondent
Kendrapara(Odisha), July 14: The crime branch wing of state police that has taken up the investigation of provident funds scam in the schools and mass education department has found embezzlement of an estimated Rs 22 lakh PF savings.

About 35 primary school teachers suffered following embezzlement of PF money from their accounts.

It should be recalled here that two employees of Kendrapara district inspector of schools office had earlier been suspended after authorities uncovered the fraud two years back.

Crime branch sources told that the inquiry conducted so far has found prima facie evidence of PF fund bungling in more than a dozen of government-run primary schools by mass education department employees and officials. The fraud detected till date amounted to more than Rs 22 lakh.

The suspected role of a senior mass education department in the GPF scam is being thoroughly probed and the complicity of the officer with the low-grade staffs in illegal GPF savings withdrawal is more or less established, said the sources.

Besides, there has been detection of embezzlement of dearness allowance arrears, increment arrears, electricity dues of primary schools.