Mangaluru : The Legislative Committee on the Welfare of Backward Classes and Minorities said here on Wednesday that the management of Morarji Desai and Kittur Rani Channamma Residential Schools should be controlled by the respective zilla panchayat (ZP) Chief Executive Officers (CEO) and not the Karnataka Residential Educational Institutions Society.

At a meeting to review social welfare work in Dakshina Kannada, J.R. Lobo, committee chairman, and nine other members said the ZP CEOs could have a good hold over these schools, particularly to ensure that the students receive good quality food, have proper security, among overseeing other management issues.

Presently, the society, that is headed by the Minister for Social Welfare and Backward Classes, was not showing any interest in managing the two schools efficiently, they said.

Criticising the functioning of the society, P.M. Narendra Swamy, member of the committee and MLA, said the society had not invited bids for the supply of food to students in these schools for 12 years and had been renewing the contract of the same agency for 12 years now. “This has been the plight of the voiceless students who are being forced to eat the same food for so long,” he said.

There was no mechanism in place to oversee the working of the society that was spending ₹185 crore every year on the schools meant for students of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes.

“Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the ZP CEO are authorised to look into the affairs of the school. It’s ironic that the official from the Department of Social Welfare, which releases the grants to these schools, is not authorised to look into matters related to the school,” Mr. Lobo said.

Mr. Lobo added that the decentralisation of the administration of the schools will be among the recommendations that the committee will make to the State government.