*HRD’s repeated communiqués ignored by NC-Cong Govt
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 7: Establis-hing that education sector received negligible attention of the concerned authorities of the State during past several years, Jammu and Kashmir has failed to utilize whopping amount of over Rs 80 crore which was sanctioned by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry for hostel facilities to the girl students of secondary and higher secondary schools in the Educationally Backward Blocks and computer/smart classes in other areas of the State.
The height of non-seriousness can be gauged from the fact that repeated communiqués of the Union Ministry were ignored and no response was ever furnished about the hurdles, if any, in utilization of funds.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that under one major component of Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), which pertains to construction and running of girls’ hostel for students of secondary and higher secondary schools, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry during the financial year 2011-12 approved an amount of Rs 69.29 crore for Jammu and Kashmir.
This whopping amount was to be utilized for construction of girls hostels for the students of 68 secondary and higher secondary schools in the Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs) of the State. The topography of all the three regions of the State and construction cost were given due attention while sanctioning funds for the construction of hostels, sources said.
For Kashmir valley, an amount of Rs 2.27 crore was earmarked for construction of each hostel while as for similar infrastructure in Jammu region, an amount of Rs 2.10 crore was fixed. Similarly, an amount of Rs 2.60 crore was earmarked for each hostel in Ladakh region.
Though schools were identified, no further step was initiated to provide this facility to the students by ensuring construction of infrastructure, sources said while disclosing that entire amount of Rs 69.29 crore is lying unspent since 2011-12 despite the fact that the main objective of this component was to retain the girl child in the secondary school so that girl students are not denied the opportunity of continuing their study due to distance to school, parents’ financial affordability and other connected societal factors.
Moreover, another objective of the scheme to make secondary and senior secondary education accessible to a larger number of girl students could not be achieved because of the slackness of the then National Conference-Congress Coalition Government, they further said while disclosing that repeated communiqués of the Union HRD Ministry regarding utilization of funds were ignored by those at the helm of affairs in the Education Department.
They said that the target group under this component of RMSA is the girl students in the age group of 14-18 years, studying in classes IX and XII belonging to SC, ST, OBC, minority communities and BPL families.
According to the sources, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) component of RMSA also met the same fate as that of girls hostels during the past several years as funds earmarked for providing computer aided education to the secondary and higher secondary Government and Government aided schools have also remained un-utilized.
The ICT was launched in order to provide opportunities to secondary stage students to mainly build their capacity on Information and Communic-ation Technology skills and make them learn through computer aided learning process. A total of 220 schools were identified in different parts of the State for ICT facilities but no step was initiated on ground despite sanctioning of Rs 6.4 lakh for each school by the HRD Ministry, sources said.
Disclosing that amount to the tune of Rs 14 crore could not be spent due to slackness of the concerned authorities, sources said, “due to non utilization of funds the objective of bridging the digital divide amongst students of various socio-economic and other geographical barriers could not be achieved”, adding “besides for computer labs, these funds were also meant for establishment of smart classes”.
When contacted, a senior officer of the Education Department said, “the new dispensation has fast-tracked construction of hostels for the girl students of secondary and higher secondary schools and a mechanism has been evolved to ensure their timely completion”, adding “even National Institute of Electronic and Information Technology (NIELIT) has been roped in for establishment of smart classes and computer labs in the identified schools”.
They disclosed that Minister for Education, Naeem Akhtar is personally monitoring progress on implementation of both these components of RMSA so that targeted section of students derive benefit of the same.
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