Session nears end, over 1 lakh schoolkids yet to get uniform

Vikas Sharma
Tribune News Service
Jammu, February 18

With the academic session 2019-20 nearing completion, more than 1 lakh students of Classes I to VIII enrolled in government schools of different districts of Jammu division are yet to receive uniforms.

The HRD Ministry under its flagship scheme of Samagra Shiksha provides two sets of school uniforms free to each student in government schools every year. For this, the School Education Department is provided with a unit cost of Rs 600, which was Rs 400 till last year. Overall, as many as 6,81,833 students have been enrolled in Class I to XII in 12,354 government schools of Jammu province.

As per the data available with The Tribune, a total of 1,03,619 students of government schools in Jammu province are yet to receive the free uniform.

Udhampur district tops with the maximum number of students without school uniform. The total demand from the district is 1,18,284, of which 1,18,028 uniforms have been received and 28,655 students are yet to get it.

In Doda district, of total demand of 1,16,016 uniforms, 96,562 have been received but distributed among only 68,562 students. As many as 28,000 students are yet to receive the uniforms to date.

The students of government schools in Ramban district too are at the receiving end. Of 98,864 uniforms demanded, the district received 77,709. Of these, only 55,457 uniforms were distributed and 22,252 students are yet to receive the same. In Kishtwar district, a total of 7, 584 students did not receive the uniforms followed by Rajouri (4,960), Jammu (4,227), Poonch (4,068) and Samba district (77).

“Since the start of the academic session, we are waiting for the distribution of school uniforms. The students as well as their parents are coming to the school every now and then and ask us about the present status, but we have no answer,” said a government school teacher.

“The main reason behind the non-distribution of school uniforms among the students is difference in size. One-size uniforms are provided in bulk to the school management. As a result, the students are not able to wear it. The wait for uniforms with different sizes often gets lengthy and students have no option but to wear old ones,” an official of the Education Department said.