BANGALORE: Labour Minister and Chairperson of the District Implementation Committee B N Bacchegowda on Monday approved Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’s (SSA) action plan (budget) for Bangalore Rural district for the year 2012-13.
A total amount of `23.80 crore has been estimated by SSA for various programmes that include wages and training of teachers, free textbooks, facilities for the physically-challenged children, programmes to attract school dropouts, research and valuations among other administrative plans.
After a meticulous scrutiny of the action plan, the minister said,“Scarcity of water is a dire problem in many districts. I want you (BEOs and DDPIs) to give top priority for water. Also, make sure there are no repetitions in the budget. For instance, if toilets have already been covered in the previous year’s budget, be sure that you do not include it again.”
With `10.26 crore granted last year (2011-12) for Bangalore Rural, SSA has reported a progress of 91.54 per cent in its implementation of programmes.
“It is good that we have managed such robust progress last year. I will take this action plan to the government. Let us hope to strive harder to deliver quality education in the rural belt,” said Bacchegowda.
The minister was irked by the failure of the education officials to provide clarity on certain aspects of last year’s expenditure.
For instance, SSA has reported an expenditure of Rs 50 lakh on computers (under the Computer Aided Learning scheme) for 8 schools in Bangalore Rural.
When the minister asked for a breakup of this amount, the officials struggled to provide an answer.
The officials again failed to explain how or why ‘zero’ progress was marked for training of teachers in Bangalore Rural.
“This is really bad. You have to come prepared with all data and information to a meeting like this. I am not saying that money has been misused. However, this is not expected from education officials. The department has great respect, and we have to be transparent and coherent with all accounts,” he said.