Mumbai leads Maharashtra in digitizing education staff records

Mumbai leads Maharashtra in digitizing education staff records, with nearly 60% of employee data uploaded, while several districts lag far behind in the state’s ongoing Shalarth portal exercise.

The statewide initiative covers teaching and non-teaching staff in government and aided schools.

Employees are required to submit documents such as appointment orders, joining reports, approval letters, and service records through the Shalarth portal. The submission deadline was Sept 20.

Despite progress in Mumbai, compliance remains very low in other districts. Dhule, Akola, and Solapur have each digitized less than 1% of employee records, leaving the state average far below the city’s performance.

The drive primarily targets staff appointed before 2016, when creating a Shalarth ID was not mandatory.

Many older records still exist only in physical form at schools and education offices, complicating verification and audit processes.

Shalarth is Maharashtra’s centralized online system for maintaining salary, service, and financial information of education department employees.

The current digitization effort follows a review of the portal after irregularities were detected in the creation and use of Shalarth IDs.

By converting legacy records to digital format and linking them to verified employee profiles, the exercise aims to consolidate data, identify discrepancies, and standardize records that are currently scattered across multiple administrative levels.

Districts with minimal uploads continue to face challenges in record verification, audits, and administrative work, underscoring the uneven pace of implementation across Maharashtra.