While strengthening school infrastructure would enable development of government schools on the lines of the corporate ones, as envisaged by the Minister for Education, Kadiyam Srihari, a new problem pops up in the combined district of Nalgonda.
Only five of the 12 elected representatives made their response official, regarding the deduction of ₹1 crore towards the development of schools, under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), from their Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
The situation across the State too, is not very different. According to a source at the Directorate of School Education, there are less than 50 such elected representatives on the whole, who have deducted the amount for schools.
Mr. Srihari, while reviewing the school system and education needs in the district in 2016, had said that the State government, through the centrally-sponsored SSA, would allocate ₹1 crore for every crore contributed by the elected leader in that constituency. The total of ₹5 crore would be sufficient to bring about a change in schools in each constituency. The funding pattern of the SSA stands in the ratio of 60:40 between the Centre and the State. “This will make it binding on the elected leader to take better care of the schools in their constituency,” he said.
However, two years later, in the academic calendar 2017-18, there are more than 300 schools in the districts in dilapidated condition, and another 500-plus schools functioning under asbestos roof. Nearly 800 schools are without drinking water facility.
According to the District Collectors of Nalgonda, Suryapet and Yadadri, authorisation was received from Nagrajuna Sagar MLA K. Jana Reddy, Devarakonda MLA Ramavath Ravindra Naik, Miryalaguda MLA N. Bhaskar Rao, Suryapet MLA G. Jagadish Reddy and Tungathurthy leader Gadari Kishore Kumar, and none from Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district.
“It could be lack of political willingness, or issues related to the changes in letter formats, communicated to the leaders,” a top official said. However, even though the ₹5-crore SSA fund per constituency, every five years, seems sufficient to develop school infrastructure, official sources in the Suryapet DEO said, the district alone would need ₹60 crore to develop schools in four of its constituencies.
