Senior secondary school on just 1-acre land to be reality in 3 cities

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 20

The state government has relaxed norms regarding requirement of land for opening and upgrading schools in Panchkula, Gurugram and Faridabad cities.

In its orders issued yesterday, the Department of Secondary Education revised the norms regarding land required for opening or upgrading private senior secondary schools in these three cities to one acre.

As per the provisions of the Haryana School Education Rules, 2003, at least two acres are required for opening a secondary or senior secondary school or upgrading an existing school to this level in rural, urban as well as controlled areas.

“The decision has been taken considering the fact that the availability of land in highly populated areas like Panchkula, Gurugram and Faridabad is a big issue. Further, due to high population, there is greater demand of new schools in these areas,” said Virender Singh Sehrawat, Joint Secretary in the School Education Department. “The department, presently, has the ceiling norms for land for private secondary and senior secondary schools over two acres for both the categories. But it was being observed that this ceiling had unreasonably restricted schools to areas in Panchkula, Gurugram and Faridabad, where there was a greater demand for new schools in view of the increasing population,” he said.

Sehrawat further said that land norms for schools were applied by multiple agencies and conflicting situations arose before the authorities concerned at times due to varying norms.

“It has also been decided that whenever a conflict arises, the decision of the school education department shall prevail,” he said.

Private schools have welcomed the step, but at the same time they have described it as too little and too late. “Though the CBSE had long revised its norms, but we welcome the state government’s decision. Norms should have been relaxed in all municipal areas of Haryana and for all the categories of schools. Due to these norms, we are forced to shift primary and middle schools outside the cities putting small kids to the perils of long travel,” said Vijender Mann, president of the Haryana United Schools Association.