20 thousand students of Zilla Parisad haven't received school uniforms yet

Nagpur: Officials and administration claimed that free uniforms will be provided to students on the first day of the new academic session; But even after a period of more than a month since the school started, the savings account of many schools has not received the fund of free uniform subsidy under Samajra Shiksha. Due to this, more than 20 thousand students of Zilla Parishad schools still have not received uniform.

Compared to the previous three years, in the academic year 2022-23. The number of students in schools has increased to 6,491. In the year 2021-22 there were 65951 students, while in the academic year 2022-23 there are 72,431 students. Almost 30 percent of these students have not received uniform.

Since last year, all the funds received by the government under the Samajra Shiksha Abhiyan are made available through the Public Financial Management Service (PFMS) system. For this, Bank of Maharashtra was selected as Single Nodal Account (SNA) at the state level; But due to the system and technical aspects of the said bank, this system has not been implemented properly. Therefore, it is known that the funds of the student's free uniform scheme along with other grants of Samagra Shiksha are trapped in the PFMS system.

Now the state government has selected HDFC Bank instead of Bank of Maharashtra for single nodal account. All schools will now have to open a savings account with HDFC Bank. Therefore, there is no concrete information from the administration about when the funds for the free uniform scheme will be available.

Principal's financial dilemma

The group education officer's office instructed the principals that the funds would soon be available by giving the figures of the funds received by the schools, so buy uniforms. Accordingly, some principals bought uniforms, some by paying close money and some on credit; But the funds were not available even after a month. Due to this, the principals have faced a lot of financial problems.

District President Leeladhar Thackeray, General Secretary Anil Nasre and other members of the Maharashtra State Primary Teachers' Committee have demanded that all kinds of funds should be made available to the schools immediately, through a written statement to the Chief Executive Officer and Education Officer (Pr.).