Sc stops teLangana from cLosing 4,500 government schooLs

The government said 15,000 teachers were idle as there were not enough students.

The deaths due to Naxal violence in the country has declined by a massive 42% in 2015 compared to 2013, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said during a meeting to review the progress in the development works being undertaken in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected states.

The meeting was attended by the Chief Secretaries of the seven LWE-affected states, viz., Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Telengana and Maharashtra.

During the meeting, special projects in LWE affected areas such as construction of roads, installation of mobile towers, and development measures such as schools with hostel facilities were discussed.

According to MHA officials, a decision was also taken to upgrade the multi-specialty hospital at Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh, which is one of the worst Naxal affected districts in the country

“Several other issues such as installation of mobile towers in Naxal affected areas, increasing the reach of networks of DD and AIR, improvement in programmes, expansion of railway lines, banking & postal services were also discussed in detail”, an official said.

The Supreme Court has literally turned saviour for around 4,500 government schools in Telangana which the K. Chandrasekhar Rao led TRS government wanted to shut down, citing non-availability of enough number of students.

Of the total 18,139 primary and 6,300 upper primary schools in the state, not less than 4,500 primary and 550 upper primary schools were about to be closed this academic year under what the government has termed as the “rationalisation of schools” in a phased manner.

The government wanted to close these schools and shift the teaching staff to other schools where there are vacancies for teachers. This would have saved the government from recruiting around 15,000 government teachers and putting extra burden on the exchequer. But a host of activists and civil society groups challenged the government’s move in the SC in October 2015, saying that this was against the spirit of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which stipulated that every habitation should have a primary school within a distance of 1 km.

As per the Telangana government’s statement in the Assembly in March last year, there are 405 schools without a single student, while 991 schools have zero to 10 students, and 2,390 schools have less than 20 students. The government estimated that around 15,000 teachers are “idling” away their time in these schools.

Responding to the PILs filed against the government, a division bench of the SC comprising Justice Dipak Mishra and Justice Shiva Kirti Singh appointed a commission led by senior counsel Ashok Gupta in April to investigate the matter. The commission visited both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and inspected dozens of schools before submitting an interim report to the SC. In most of the schools, teachers’ attendance was very low and the quality of amenities like drinking water supply and toilets for students was poor. The panel came across shocking instances like regular government teachers appointing some proxy private teachers in their places to bunk schools.

The judicial activism reflected through this special commission brought pressure on the state government to roll back its earlier decision. Telangana school education director G. Kishan has confirmed to The Sunday Guardian that the government might not close any schools this academic year which began on 13 June. “We are trying our best to keep running these schools. We have launched an enrolment campaign to fill seats in these schools,” he said. The campaign, named as “Badi Baata” (back to school), had been launched on 1 June and it will continue till the first week of July. Teachers of these schools will visit households and urge parents to send their children to government schools. The campaign has been launched keeping in view the SC’s next hearing on 13 July. In its orders in the first week of May, the Apex Court wanted to know the steps taken by the government to attract students to these schools.

Meanwhile, secretary of parents association of Telangana government schools, M. Narayana told this newspaper that there was a conspiracy to kill government schools only to benefit the “rapacious private schools”. “Why should government schools with more qualified teachers go begging for students, while private schools with less qualified and less experienced teachers get more students? Moreover, the fee in government schools is zero, while private ones charge not less than Rs 20,000 per annum,” said Narayana. The BJP led NDA government has given its nod to Andhra Pradesh government’s request for adopting the “Swiss Challenge method” for the fast-track development of its green field capital city, Amaravati. After examining a few other existing models for developing the capital city, the AP government selected the Swiss Challenge method and a formal decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting held in Vijayawada on Friday. The Cabinet decision came only after obtaining the consent of the Union Urban Development Ministry.

Perhaps this is the first time that the Centre has allowed any state to go for the Swiss Challenge method in the infrastructure sector. The Union Urban Development Ministry led by M. Venkaiah Naidu, who hails from Nellore district in AP, is learnt to have played a key role in persuading the Centre, sources in the AP government told this newspaper.

Amaravati, which is spread over 8,623 sq km, requires Rs 25,000 crore in the next 10 years for its construction. The Centre has committed to allot around Rs 12,500 crore as part of its assurance in the AP Reorganization Act, 2014.

Under the Swiss Challenge method, the state government led consortium notifies a basic proposal from a developer and seeks bids from others who can perform better.

The AP government has invited bids from firms all over the world. AP Municipal Administration Minister P. Narayana told The Sunday Guardian that the Singapore consortium’s plan was widely publicised in Singapore, Japan, China and the UK. The bids will be accepted till 15 August, he said.

As of now, the Singapore consortium has submitted its project and this will be treated as the basis for calling for other bids. There are indications that China, Japan and South Korea might bid for the same.

The Singapore consortium comprises two firms—30-yearold Ascendas Signbridge, which is a 16 billion US dollar company; and 18-year-old SembiCorp, a 5.5 billion US dollar company.

The AP government backed Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) too will be a partner of the joint venture, called Amaravati Development Partner, with a 58:42 sharing. In the first phase of the core administration district, the consortium will construct buildings only on 6.84 sq km.

As per the basic proposal submitted by the Singapore consortium, the first 50 acres will be allotted to the joint venture at a nominal cost of Rs 2 lakh per acres, but the next 200 acres will be priced at Rs 4 crore per acre. Once the development is completed, the Singapore firms will have a share of 74.5% in the revenues, while the rest will be with the CRDA.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday handed over the residential and commercial plots promised to the farmers who offered their agricultural lands for Amaravati.

Under the government’s LPS scheme, people displaced of their land will be given residential and commercial plots within the capital city limits. On Saturday, at a function held at Tullur mandal in Guntur district of Amaravati, Naidu handed over certificates of 1,916 plots—1,167 residential and 796 commercial—to 847 farmers. The allotment was done through a lottery system. Meanwhile, the shifting of the capital from Hyderabad to Amaravati began from Thursday and the offices in the newly built Secretariat at Velagapudi will formally be opened between Monday and Wednesday. The State government employees who are shifting from Hyderabad were given six days of paid holiday—three days for searing houses and three days for settling in new offices. A government run canteen, NTR Canteen, was opened at the newly built Secretariat complex for the the employees and the public who throng there. The AP government has set up help desks to help its employees in finding homes and schools for their children in Amaravati.