BHUBANESWAR: Odisha government’s ‘Mo School’ campaign has received a bureaucratic booster dose with IAS officers coming forward to adopt schools for their holistic development this year.
According to School and Mass Education department sources, over 30 officers including 13 from the Chief Minister’s Office and 17 from different government departments and district administrations have led by example and come forward to connect with the school adoption programme.
Following Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s appeal to the alumni to take ownership of their alma mater and support development, senior officers of the State government evinced interest in adopting one or more schools. The campaign, a project supervised by 5T Initiatives Secretary VK Pandian, promotes overall development of schools through participation of the alumni.
Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra tops the list of adopting officers. Mohapatra is set to adopt DN High School in Keonjhar, sources said. Similarly Chief Advisor to the CM R Balakrishnan and Principal Advisor to CM Asit Tripathy, also Western Odisha Development Council chief, will adopt Jajpur Government High School and Titlagarh High Schools respectively.
Works Secretary Krishan Kumar and additional secretary to the Chief Minister Roopa Roshan Sahoo have committed to adopt three schools under this initiative. Kumar, in fact, has adopted two schools - MR Boys High School and MR Girls High School - in Gajapati, while Sahoo has adopted BB High School in Dhenkanal. School and Mass Education Secretary Satyabrata Sahu, who had lent his voice for the ‘Mo School’ anthem last year, will adopt Manikeswari High School in Bhawanipatna.
This apart, IT Secretary Manoj Mishra will adopt the Unit I Boys High School in the Capital city and Energy Secretary Nikunja Bihari Dhal will adopt BS High School at Sayedpur in Jajpur and work for their development. Transport secretary Madhusudan Padhi will take up Brahmapur High School in Bhadrak.
The list also includes Special Secretary at CMO Vineel Krishna, RDC Central Division Anil Kumar Samal, Odisha Mining Corporation MD Balwant Singh, OSEPA State Project Director Bhupendra Singh Poonia and district collectors of Bhadrak, Gajapati and Kendrapara.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had launched the ‘Mo School Abhiyan’ on Children’s Day in 2017 to bring alumni, their alma mater and the community around government or government aided schools together for their transformation. The funds for implementation of Mo School programmes comes from two sources - contribution from donors while twice the amount of the contribution is drawn from a dedicated initial corpus of Rs 100 crore created by the State Government.
More than 25,000 schools in the State have been connected under this platform for their development so far. The government has approved projects worth Rs 57.49 crore for 8,877 schools for 2020-21. Of this Rs 19.16 crore was contribution made by alumni of different schools, while Rs 38.32 crore was provided by the government from the corpus.
Schools for future
Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra
DN High School, Keonjhar
Chief Advisor to CM
R Balakrishnan
Jajpur Govt High School
WODC Chairman Asit Tripathy
Titlagarh High School
Works Secretary Dr Krishan Kumar
MR Boys High School, MR Girls High School, Gajapati
Additional Secy to CM Roopa Roshan Sahoo
BB High School, Dhenkanal
Special Secretary at CMO Vineel Krishna
Badapada Ashram School, Malkangiri