NEW DELHI: The Project Approval Board (PAB) of the education ministry didn’t consider or approve any proposal for funds to madrasas in Uttar Pradesh under Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrasas (SPQEM) for four years from 2017-18 to 2020-21.
In a letter to Bahujan Samajwadi Party MP Kunwar Danish Ali, the minister of state for education Annapurna Devi however said that the proposal of the state government for the year 2021-22 was considered and approved by the Board after the scheme was transferred to the ministry of minority affairs.
It released Rs 106.49 crore subsequently to the UP government.
“This department releases the funds to the respective state governments after they prepare an annual consolidated proposal for intervention under SPQEM. Eligible proposals, after examination as per the guidelines, were placed before the PAB. The approved funds were then released to the concerned state governments. No proposal for the years 2017-18 onwards were considered/ approved in any PAB meeting for the state of UP,” reads the letter.
However, the minister added that Rs 18,516 crore were released to the UP government under the scheme in 2020-21 for the years upto 2016-17. The scheme was transferred to the minority affairs ministry in April 2021.
Ali raised the issue of payment of arrears of honorarium to madrasa teachers and also sought an increase in it in the July Parliament session.
Following the letter from the minister, the BSP MP said that the minister had distanced herself by telling a funny story on the issue of public importance in Parliament.
He said that the truth is that the UP government has not paid the honorarium to the madrasa teachers for the last four years.
The Uttar Pradesh government on August 31 announced that it will conduct a survey of unrecognised madrasas in the state to gather information about the number of teachers, curriculum, their affiliation with any non-government organisation and basic facilities available there, among other things.
"The Uttar Pradesh government's policy is proving to be a double-edged sword for madrasa teachers. On the one hand, it (government) is not giving an honorarium to the teachers of recognised madrasas and on the other, it is creating fear amongst unrecognised madrasas," Ali said in a tweet in Hindi.
The government is playing with the future of madrasa teachers and lakhs of poor children, he charged.
At present, there are a total of 16,461 madrasas in Uttar Pradesh, out of which 560 are given government grants.
New madrasas have not been included in the grant list for the last six years in the state.
(With PTI Inputs)