Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has vowed to conduct surprise checks in different districts every month.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has said she will spend at least a week every month touring her state and conducting unannounced checks on government facilities. This after several such surprise visits on the weekend threw up some shocks.
She picked Sawai Madhpur, about 150 kilometre from state capital Jaipur, to spend the day visiting government schools, anganwadis or village centres for young children and primary health centres to see how they were being run.
At her first stop, a small anganwadi, she inspected the centre's register to find that of 16 children below 10 meant to visit the anganwadi every day for a wholesome meal and iron and vitamins, only half that number did so.
Ms Raje was displeased. "This is a problem we need to solve," the Chief Minister told Sawai Madhopur collector Anandi and travelled to another village, where she decided to taste the mid-day meal served to students at a girls' school.
It was too spicy, she said, and there no was no salt. "Do you get other fruit too with your midday meal or is it always a banana," she asked the students. "We get fruits, sometimes apples as well," they said.
It was at her next stop in a village called Chakheri that the Chief Minister was most upset. A hostel for girls, meant to house 20 in every dormitory, has facilities only for 15 in each.
"Where has the rest of the money gone," Ms Raje asked angrily, adding, "somebody has been siphoning off funds here."
"This is not what we had planned, children sleeping two to a bed, sleeping in rooms that they supposed to study in," she said.
The chief minister has now vowed to conduct surprise checks in different districts every month to ensure her government is kept on its toes.
The opposition Congress has dismissed the move as "an image-building exercise" for Ms Raje who has recently faced political fire over her alleged links with tainted cricket moghul Lalit Modi.