Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ along with Minister of State for HRD Sanjay Dhotre interacted with Education Ministers and Education Secretaries of all the States through video conferencing on April 28, 2020. Education Ministers of 22 States and secretaries from 14 States and Union Territories attended the conference. Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Anita Karwal, and senior officials of the Ministry participated at the meeting.
Addressing the meeting, Pokhriyal said that the current situation of COVID-19 is unfortunate but it is time to act wisely and turn the situation into opportunity by doing new experiments to ensure safety and academic welfare of students. He said that while addressing his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ programme recently, PM Narendra Modi also said that India’s fight against the novel coronavirus has become people-driven wherein every citizen is playing his or her part. Be it businesses, offices, education institutes or medical sector, everyone is adapting to changes in the post-coronavirus world.
Pokhriyal said that our whole efforts should be that our 33 crore students do not face any difficulty and can continue their education. For this, various efforts are being made to strengthen the online education platforms like DIKSHA, Swayam, SwayamPrabha, Vidyadaan 2.0, E-Pathshala, Educational TV Channel of Doordarshan, DishTV, Tata Sky, Jio, Airtel DTH etc. The Minister also said that apart from this, alternative academic calendar has also been released by NCERT which states can adopt according to their local situation. Also we have to prepare safety guidelines in case of opening of schools, he added, according to a PIB release.
Pokhriyal announced a land mark decision that approval is being given for providing mid-day meal during summer holidays of schools on which an additional expenditure of about Rs 1,600 crore will be made. In addition, under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, an Ad-hoc grant of Rs 2,500 crore is being issued for the first quarter.
To augment the Mid-day meal programme ,the Minster announced that in wake of COVID-19, the annual central allocation of cooking cost (for procurement of pulses, vegetable, oil, spices and fuel) under Mid Day Meal Scheme has been enhanced to Rs 8,100 crore from Rs 7,300 crore ( an increment of 10.99%).
Pokhriyal informed that under SamagraShiksha, relaxing the norms, the GOI has allowed the states to spend the balance of the previous year which is around Rs 6,200 crore and an Ad-hoc grant of Rs 4,450 crore is also being issued for the first quarter. He also requested states to immediately transfer the amount released under SamagraShiksha to the State Implementation Committee so that it can be utilised properly to ensure that the next instalment can be released.
During the meeting, Pokhriyal informed that on the request of Ministry of HRD regarding the availability of text books in the stores, Ministry of Home affairs has relaxed the lockdown rules to open the bookstores so that students can avail books to continue their studies.
The Minister appealed to all the States to start the process of evaluation of answer-sheets of Board exams and facilitate CBSE to evaluate answer-sheets of the students in their respective States.
Pokhriyal listened to all the problems and suggestions made by the States Ministers and officers. States also appreciated the efforts made by the Ministry of Human Resource Development for providing all possible help to States to ensure academic welfare of students.