In an effort to identify model schools and boost infrastructure, the Karnataka government has made a provision for using funds under the Members of Legislative Assembly Local Area Development (MLA-LAD) scheme to buy vans for providing free pick-up and drop for government school students. According to sources in the education department, BC Nagesh, minister of school education, wrote to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and all the MLAs and members of the Legislative Council requesting MLA-LAD funds to buy school vans and support the ambitious Kalika Chetarike (learning recovery) programme. “This provision is made with a bigger aim wherein MLAs can identify model schools, help boost the development and fix infrastructure issues in government schools with MLA-LAD funds. This in turn will help around 13,000 schools with fewer students to shift to schools with better infrastructure. The education department is working to ensure that villagers send their children to model schools,” said a senior education official. The official said the van drivers’ salary, fuel costs and other maintenance charges would be borne by school development and monitoring committees. However, since the onset of the Covid pandemic, the government has withdrawn the bicycle scheme, saying the schools had switched to the online mode and that the scheme’s cost jumped from Rs 170 crore to Rs 220 crore owing to inflation.
