Delhi govt releases first tranche of 400 crore for municipal schools

Delhi education minister Atishi on Thursday released 400 crore as the first tranche of the annual funds allocated for Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)-run schools.

She said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led government will now work towards making MCD-run schools world-class along the lines of government schools.
The minister said that the government has allocated 1,700 crore as grant-in-aid for MCD schools this year.

“For the AAP government, education has been the first priority. The education sector has received the biggest allocation of the annual budget. All the schools up to Class 5 come under the MCD. It is our commitment to improve the corporation schools as they make the educational foundation of the kids. Right now, these children are not even able to read and write due to problems with these schools,” Atishi said.

The minister said that the MCD schools have been facing various issues such as teachers going on strike, sanitation, broken benches, lack of toilet infrastructure — all of which have been attributed to fund shortage.

“This time the MCD funds have been increased. Schools will get 1,700 crore this year and 400 crore are being released today. From now onwards, the shortage of money will not be an issue for these schools. We will make these schools world-class on the lines of the government schools,” she added.

The primary education sector in the city is overseen by the corporation which runs 1,534 primary schools, 44 aided schools where 8.67 lakh children are enrolled. MCD has also recognised 666 primary schools.

On April 11, HT had reported that an internal audit of the building infrastructure of the MCD-run primary schools shows that around one-third of these schools are in need of major repair work with 368 building sites in need of major building repair (31.05%), 198 buildings needing minor repair work (16.7%) while only around half of the buildings (51.05%) were found to be in good condition.MCD mayor Shelly Oberoi said that when she visited the MCD schools, they found that most of the schools were in very poor condition and required major and minor repairs.

“In some MCD schools, classrooms are needed to be constructed, while others could not complete their construction work due to lack of funds. In such a situation, these funds released by the Delhi government will be extremely helpful,” Oberoi said.Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that Atishi’s claim of providing 1,700 crore for the MCD schools is “fallacious”.

“Government has not given any special funds for the improvement of corporation schools today. The 1,700 crore that the minister has talked about is the plan head fund and the 400 crore that has been said to be released today is the instalment of the first quarter of the financial year which has to be given every year in April. The truth is that due to political malice, Delhi government earlier did not give such plan head fund to BJP-ruled corporations on time but now because the corporation is under AAP administration, the state government is giving these instalments on time and misleadingly terming it as a special fund,” Kapoor said.

Kapoor added that for the last eight years, the BJP has been continuously saying that the Delhi government is deducting the MCD funds for education, health, sanitation, development and even employee salaries. Due to this, several works, including education and school reforms, were stalled.