Delhi Lieutenant Governor gives green signal to process for private school takeover
NEW DELHI: Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal has cleared the Delhi government’s decision of initiating the process of taking over 449 private schools which includes most prestigious and prominent schools of Delhi. According to the sources, the clearance was given on Saturday for issuing show cause notices to these schools. These 449 private schools have hiked fees after 6th pay commission but it was found that schools didn’t abide by the directives of the Justice Anil Dev Singh committee and they have to refund extra fee.
Government is claiming that if schools will not refund the increased fees to the parents as a last resort they will have to take over the schools. “This is the first step, we will serve notices to seek reply from the school, if they still show us rigidness in not refunding the fee, we will start taking over the schools. So far no school has been taken over by the government,” a senior education department official said.
“After the 6th pay commission, many private schools hiked fees. Justice Anil Dev Singh committee was set up to probe unjustified fee hike. Many schools did not abide by the directives of the committee.” Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has said. “When the High Court asked the Delhi government on how it will implement the court orders, we assured that we will implement it in its entirety. And schools that do not fall in line, we offered that we will completely take over those schools,” Kejriwal said.
On Wednesday last week, the government told the High Court that it was willing to take over the 449 private schools which have not refunded the excess fee charged from parents. These 449 schools are among the 554 which had to refund excess fees, after a committee headed by Justice Anil Dev Singh recommended it at an interest rate of nine per cent.