PSEB to disburse funds to schools for uniforms

Manav Mander
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, September 10

After the bad experience of outsourcing uniforms of children, the Punjab School Education Board has decided to disburse funds to schools for providing uniforms to students.

Uniforms for the last session had arrived in April 2019 but majority of students had failed to get complete sets of uniforms. Some students had got pants but shirts were missing, Some had received wrong size of their uniforms, and some had received wrong shoe size.

To overcome all these problems, the department, this year, will transfer money to schools so that they could get uniforms stitched according to the size of students.

Students of Class I to VIII will be given free school uniforms. The price has been fixed Rs 600 per uniform. In Ludhiana district, a total of 1,21,488 students will be provided uniforms. A fund of Rs 7.28 crore has been given to the district office of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyaan and the office has further transferred the funds to respective schools.

The colour of school uniforms will be decided by respective school management committees. It is also up to the committee to decide whether to keep suit-salwar or pant-shirts as uniform for girl students.

“Last year, tenders were floated and uniforms received by the students created a chaos. Most of teachers’ time was wasted in solving the issue of wrong size of uniforms. It is better that this year schools will provide the uniforms,” said Ramanjit, a teacher at a government school.

Budget 

• Total number of students to get uniforms in the district: 1,21,488
• Cost of one uniform: Rs 600
• Total amount of fund given: Rs 728 crore 
• The funds have been given to the district office of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyaan and the office has further transferred the funds to respective schools
• Boys to be given a pair of pants and a shirt with patka (for Sikh boys, warm cap for others), a pair of shoes and socks, and a cardigan 
• Girls to be given a pair of either pant-shirt or suit-salwar with dupatta, a pair of shoes and socks, and a cardigan