Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader and former Minister Ch. Ayyanna Patrudu has criticised Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy for his decision to reopen schools in the State on September 5.
In a video message to the Chief Minister, he advised Mr. Jagan not to go ahead with his decision and put the lives of children at risk in the pandemic situation.
At a time, when the State has recorded 3.6 lakh corona positive cases and thousands were dying, it would be foolish to reopen schools, he said. The Chief Minister should own responsibility, if anything happens to the children, the TDP leader said. He wanted to know whether Mr. Jagan had spoken to parents, teachers and leaders of political parties before taking the decision.
He said that many parents had spoken to him on the decision and said they would not send their children to school. The TDP leader also alleged that he had information that the decision was taken to distribute kits to the children for publicity.
Online classes
Referring to the conduct of online classes by private schools in the State, he said while online classes were alright to keep the children engaged in the pandemic situation, there were, however, complaints that some schools were charging ₹15,000 for three months for the online classes.
Describing it as unfortunate, he said it was nothing but fleecing parents in the pandemic situation. Some parents cannot afford, while others were not even having smartphones, the TDP leader said. He suggested that the State government should give ₹15,000 to all white cardholders to enable their children to attend online classes, instead of wasting funds on other schemes.
