BJP making false allegations over school uniform allowance’

Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s Leader of the House Mukesh Goyal has accused BJP leaders of making false allegations against the Delhi government and the Mayor as he denied any deductions were made from MCD funds for the school uniform allowance.

In accordance with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) guidelines, Rs 600 is provided to all female students and ST/SC male students, which has been followed by the party and deposited directly to the students’ accounts, abiding by last year’s order.

It is the responsibility of Special Officers under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to transfer the additions of Rs 500 to the accounts. For the MCD to give that extra allowance, they would have to be provided with approval from the Standing Committee, which has not yet been formed, a senior MCD official told Millennium Post.

In response to BJP allegations about MCD’s lack of infrastructure maintenance in the schools under their jurisdiction, councillor Ankush Narang said that the Mayor and the Delhi Education Minister had already released funds for repairs of 240 schools after their inspection.

“MCD gave a budget of Rs 50,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh for minor repairs in 191 schools once they came to power. Now, after further inspection, Rs 22 crore have been allotted for 50 schools identified for repairs,” he said.

BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor claimed that the MCD is “trying to escape the blame” by putting it on officials. “If the decision to cut uniform allowance and deprive lakhs of general category children from uniform allowance was of the officers, then the Mayor and the Leader of the House should have taken action against them when they were informed of it,” he said, while pointing out the MCD’s silence over non-distribution of notebooks.

Providing notebooks in schools will exceed the budget given to MCD, and will require permission from the Standing Committee, informed a source in MCD.