SRINAGAR: Students of more than 20 schools have been forced to study out in the cold in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district as the education department has failed to pay rent to property owners.
More than 150 schools in the district have been functioning in rented accommodations for decades now.
Owners of the 20 houses where the schools functioned locked the rooms rented out to education department alleging that the education department had failed to clear their rent due for years now.
“We were being paid very nominal rent and that too was stopped,” a group of the house owners told United News of India, alleging that repeated requests by them fell on deaf ears.
The teachers of these schools said students, including minors, were facing problems due to cold weather in the open.
Officials of the education department say they are making efforts to clear their dues at the earliest.
But they fail to explain why construction work on 50 schools in the district has been stopped despite availability of funds under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme.
Official sources admitted to the news agency that execution of another major intervention by the union government, Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan (RMSA), at the secondary level was also not being implemented properly.
The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development had approved the up-gradation of 530 Middle Schools to High Schools during Project Approval Board (PAB) meetings of RMSA in 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12.
As per the provisions of the scheme, both the staff and infrastructure of the schools elevated has to be upgraded and Centre and state have to share funds on 75: 25 ratio for the purpose.
However, the sources say the funds for infrastructure remain unspent.
