JAIPUR: The Ashok Gehlot government has decided to change the uniform of 80 lakh students of government schools in Rajasthan.
At present, the school uniform has brown colour trousers and light brown shirts.
In 2017, the former BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje had changed school dresses after two decades. The Congress had accused the move of being aimed at saffronisation as it was rather similar to the Khaki uniform of RSS.
A special committee has been formed to decide the colors for the new dress.
However, to prevent any additional burden on parents, the government will distribute the new dresses free of cost to all students. In this year’s budget, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had announced that his government would provide free uniforms to children in public schools.
Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasara said: “The color of the school dress may change but what will be the color of the new school dress be? This will be decided by a special committee. Free clothing will be offered to children in all public schools. For this, we will decide to put money in the parents’ account via DBT or we may just provide the new dress to students.”
The Gehlot government had considered changing the dress of public schools last year and had even formed a committee for it. But the proposal was blocked due to the Corona crisis.
Last year, the BJP opposed the proposal to change school dress, saying it would put a lot of unnecessary burden on parents of students.
According to the estimates, the Rajasthan Government's decision to junk the earlier uniform will cost it over Rs 400 crore.