Mumbai, Oct. 31 -- Late on Thursday evening, Maharashtra government's school education department issued a statement regarding the controversy over unpaid dues to Rohit Arya. In a video released by Arya while the siege was on, he had claimed the government owed him Rs.2 crore. But the school education department cited different figures altogether. In a media release, the department claimed that Arya charged registration fees from the various schools for participation in Swachhata Monitor 2024-25, and the budget submitted by him to the department was vague and without proper documentation. The department claimed that in August 2024, it had asked Arya to deposit the amount collected from schools and students in a government account and then submit a budget with all details and documents for further action. However, Arya did not do so and that's where the matter rested. According to the statement, Arya's firm Apsara Media Entertainment Network's Project Let's Change, under the initiative of Swachhata Monitor, was approved for the first time through CSR via a government letter dated September, 27, 2022. After that, for the second time, the said initiative was approved via a government letter dated June 30, 2023 and an amount of Rs.9,90,000 was paid to his company. In 2023-24, an amount of Rs.2 crore was approved by the government to implement Phase-2 of the campaign. But the budget submitted by Arya showed the numbers and costs of components like advertising and management costs without any supporting documents. Due to these technical gaps, the scheme could not be implemented, said the statement. After that, Arya requested the department to re-implement the initiative under Project Let's Change and to approve an expenditure of Rs.2,41,81,000 for the same. While the proposal was under consideration, the government noticed that Apsara Media Entertainment Network was also charging schools a registration fee for participation on its private website without approval. The department then asked Apsara to deposit the money collected from the schools into the government's account, and submit a letter stating that it will not charge any fee from schools for the Swachhata Monitor initiative. "After the completion of these two conditions the proposal of Apsara Media Entertainment Network should be submitted to the government for implementing the Swachhata Monitor 2024-25 initiative. However, due to the requisite information not being received from Rohit Arya, further action could not be taken," said the statement....