KOLKATA: Bengal is all set to crack the whip on schools running without an NOC (no-objection certificate) from the government. The school education department has proposed a hefty penalty of Rs 1 lakh along with a daily fine of Rs 10,000 till these schools fall in line.Of the 490 schools under the scanner, 125 are run by three private trusts — Sarada Shishu Tirtha, Saraswati Shishu Mandir and Vivekananda Vidya Vikas Parishad — known to be close to the RSS-affiliate Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan. Many of these “saffron” schools run classes up to Class VIII.All these schools have been asked to submit details of registration of the trust/society running the school, recognition number, infrastructure, teacher strength, student enr-olment status and a declaration that says they don’t imp-art any teaching that goes against the Constitution.Slapping of penal provisions on errant schools will require an amendment to the West Bengal Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2012. “The amended rules will be formally notified soon,” a senior education department official said.The Right to Education Act, 2010 allows governments to conduct spot inspection and revoke the recognition of a school, if necessary. It also has provisions of penalty. The Bengal government didn’t include the penal provision while framing the rules in 2012, but is now in the process of drawing up a draft amendment that will allow it to impose a one-time fine of Rs 1 lakh on non-NOC schools and a daily fine of Rs 10,000 from the day of serving of notice. The Odisha government recently carried out such an amendment to book errant schools.The lack of penal provision in the Bengal RTE rules had come in the way of disciplining the non-NOC schools even after education minister Partha Chatterjee informed the West Bengal Assembly about their existence. Chatterjee had told the Assembly that many of the private schools get affiliation from central boards and then take NOCs from the state, making it difficult to act against them. He had also said that the state was examining 125 schools for “fanning religious intolerance” and “deviating from the state-mandated syllabus” and would revoke their NOCs if needed. Of these, 80 are in South Dinajpur and the remaining mostly in border districts like Malda and Mursidabad.According to sources, the state had earlier show-caused the schools running without NOC. On not receiving a satisfactory reply, the government had issued verbal orders to shut them down. But realising that there was no provision in the existing RTE rules framed by the Bengal government to shut down or even penalise schools running without NOCs, the state decided to amend the rules.“An amendment was hence necessary. Now, we are planning to introduce the amendment so that fines can be imposed on all schools who are functioning without NOCs,” a state official said.