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Journalism of Courage
Despite spending crores of rupees on bringing children to municipal schools for admission,the number of children in 2012 has fallen by 30 per cent in comparison with admissions in 2011.
In the current year,more than Rs 1 crore has been spent on Shala Pravesh Utsav (school admission celebrations). Rameshbbhai Chaudhry,a member of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation School Board,said most of the money spent on the Utsav went down the drain as officials indulged in fudging of accounts to justify excess or wasteful expenditure.
The School Board did not even bother to consult or inform its members about starting of a new transportation scheme for schoolchildren. The scheme was for those students who had to cover a distance of more than three kilometres from their houses to schools,Chaudhry said.
He alleged that the transportation scheme was another name of rehabilitating jobless BJP workers by giving them transportation contracts. With this,the party workers would not be displeased with the BJP-ruled state government,he added.
He said the Board had diverted grant money of Rs 1.86 crore from Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to transportation scheme.
Deputy municipal commissioner S K Langa,who looks after the school board matters,is due to move out to Nadiad as additional resident collector of Kheda district in a couple of days,said the development was abnormal due to several reasons.
First,according to school board officials,the gyanshala project of the Board had absorbed around 6,000 children this year.
Next,there was large scale migration of people from the Sabarmati riverfront sites to far flung areas where there are no or few municipal schools.
Thirdly,quoting municipal officials he said,There are no primary school buildings to accommodate the number of children.
We have definitely lost some ground and I think at least 29,000 more enrolments were possible, Langa said.
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