UP transfers money to accounts of students’ parents for uniforms

LUCKNOW : The state government on Saturday initiated the process to transfer ₹1100 each in the bank accounts of parents of 1.80 crore students of the state, for purchasing school uniforms, sweaters, bags, shoes and socks.

Those in the know of things said the move was aimed at putting an end to complaints of poor quality uniforms and shoes being made available to students. In the past, several students also complained of getting either oversized or undersized uniforms and shoes as orders were placed in bulk to lowest bidders.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said that the state government had credited ₹1100 in bank accounts of parents of 1.20 crore students of government primary and upper primary schools for purchase of two sets of school uniforms, shoe, socks and sweater.

“There are 1.80 crore students in 1.5 lakh government primary and upper primary schools. Money was credited in 1.2 crore parents’ accounts. It will be credited soon in the remaining 60 lakh parents’ accounts. The money has been transferred through DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) scheme of the government,” he said.

Earlier, the government purchased these items from various vendors and distributed them to students. “This led to problem of size and quality of uniforms and sometimes even delay in distribution of these items. The DBT scheme will allow parents to purchase the items of desired quality and size,” said basic education minister Satish Chandra Dwivedi in a video message.

Dwivedi said the state government undertook a drive to collect bank data of the parents for the scheme after Covid-19 that made timely distribution of these items more difficult.

Targeting the previous governments in the state, the CM said, “The performance of basic schools of UP is very high on the national standards of grading but some people do not like it.”

“Further, if there were teachers, students were missing. The students did not have uniforms and children used to go to school barefoot. The whole department was just engaged in transfers and postings. Now when the process is transparent and the condition of government schools has improved to a large extent due to ‘Operation Kayakalp’, they do not liking it. The opposition can’t digest the fact that the children of the poor are going to schools and getting quality education,” he added.

Yogi said more than 1.3 lakh government schools were refurbished under Operation Kayakalp.