BHAWANIPATNA: A whopping 25,363 students belonging to the BPL category in different government primary schools are yet to get their last year’s quota of uniforms even as a fresh academic session has already commenced.
While the delay has stirred resentment among parents and the deprived students, district officials are yet to get any response from the State Education department in this regard.
As per the government policy, SC/ST boys, girls of all categories and BPL students are eligible to get two sets of uniforms and a pair of shoes at Rs 600 per head.
In 2018-19 academic session, on receiving funds from the Centre basing on the previous year data, the State Education department sanctioned a grant of nearly Rs 11.22 crore for 1,86,981 eligible students of Kalahandi to the district education office, which in turn released the amount to School Management Committees to procure uniforms in October last year.
However, the fund was inadequate as 25,363 students belonging to the BPL category could not be provided the uniforms.
Sources said the data on eligible students under Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) was provided to the district office by school headmasters.
Sources in district Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan office said some school headmasters did not submit complete information of BPL students in the UDISE data.
On coming to know about the error, these headmasters later submitted another list of 25,363 students under BPL category to the authorities.
However, the additional students could not be included in the original list as allotment was already over.
District Education Officer Sanjiv Kumar Singh said they are aware of the situation.
“The district office has appealed to Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority (OPEPA) to sanction additional Rs 1.52 lakh towards uniform grant for the left out BPL students. We are yet to get any reply from the OPEPA authorities,” Singh added.