Srinagar, Oct 09: In Jammu and Kashmir, construction for hundreds of elementary level institutions approved in past years upto the 8th standard is yet to be taken by the School Education Department, Government of India (GoI) said.
The official documents accessed by the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) states that the Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL), GoI in a annual meeting of Project Approval Board (PAB) with the Ministry of Education (MoE) has said that construction in more than ten percent of primary and upper primary schools was yet to be taken up by the Jammu and Kashmir government.
The GoI has asked the Jammu and Kashmir School Education Department to surrender all the school buildings which await execution over the past many years.
“In the previous academic year, the JK government was asked to take up pending civil works on priority. Further, it was advised to surrender those infrastructure items approved earlier before 2015-16 which could not be completed,” GoI said.
In a reply, the Jammu and Kashmir School Education Department has informed, “The pending civil works have been put to execution through the engineering divisions of the School Education Department and most of the works have been either completed during the current year or are at different stages of construction which shall be completed by end of the current financial year.”
“The details of works approved under erstwhile Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) or Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) which could not be taken up for execution till 2019-20 are being authenticated from the field agencies,” JK government told GoI.
“Once the updated information is received and compiled, the proposal for the surrender of the civil works not taken up shall be submitted to the Ministry of Education,” GoI said.
“A total of 10,654 primary schools were sanctioned for Jammu and Kashmir till March-03-2021 out of which only 9411 were completed,” reads the document.
It also states that among the total primary schools sanctioned, construction was yet to start for 1087 schools while 156 were still under construction.
“Around 1177 schools were approved for construction out of which construction in only 1038 schools was completed, 11 were under-construction and work was not taken up in 128 schools,” it reads—(KNO)
