Punjab wants school uniform for Rs 100!

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, December 12

The Punjab school education department has an offer to purchase winter uniform for its over 16.64 lakh students of Class I to VIII in government schools. But what has the school authorities in a fix is the price of the uniform: a mere Rs100 to buy a trouser, shirt, cap (salwar-kameez and dupatta for girls), a pair of shoes, socks and a warm sweater.

The uniform should be of “good quality” and Rs100 included the stitching charges too, read a letter sent to schools by the Director General of School Education (DGSE), Pradeep Aggarwal.

Launched in 2010-11, the scheme, funded by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry, envisages free uniform to girls and Scheduled Caste and Below Poverty Line boys in all elementary and primary government schools.

Though the Centre provides Rs400 for each student, the fund-starved Punjab Government has only released Rs100 per uniform. In all, 16,46,462 children--8.72 lakh girls, 6.16 lakh SC/ST and 1.57 lakh BPL boys— are to be benefitted from the Punjab education department’s grant of Rs16.46 crore, released on December 7.

The schools, it is learnt, were already facing problems in getting the uniforms prepared at Rs400, which had not been revised for the last four years. “The order has come as a tough lesson for us to learn. Who will provide us uniform at such a highly subsidised rate,” said a school headmaster.

The education department has sent Rs44.31 lakh for 44,318 students in Faridkot district. There are 1,38,156 beneficiaries in Amritsar and 1,47,830 in Ludhiana.

On being contacted, Aggarwal said it was only 25 per cent of the grant, and that the rest would be allocated once the department received it. “We want the schools to use Rs100 as advance money to make purchases while the remaining will be paid later,” he said.

A principal said this “insufficient” amount too was not reaching the students on time. “The students should have got their uniforms by now as the winter season has already set in. It is un unfair practice,” he said.