The Tamil Nadu School Education Department on Saturday issued guidelines to implement Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's announcement that generators would be given to all government, aided and self-financing high and higher secondary schools in view of the existing power situation in the State.
A committee with the District Collector as chairman and the Executive Engineer, TNEB and the Executive Engineer (Buildings), PWD and the Chief Educational Officer has been constituted to ensure smooth supply of generator sets to high and higher secondary schools to enable the children to prepare for the examinations and take the exams without disturbance, according to G.O. of the School Education department.
As the Plus Two examination would be held between March 8 and 30 and Standard X examination from April 4 to 23, generators should be installed for high and higher secondary schools in March and April.
Based on the costing provided by the Director (Distribution) of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO), the district-level panel would authorise the expenditure on the hiring of generators which would be subject to some guidelines. As per these guidelines, the capacity of generator to be used to meet the load of the individual school should not exceed 5 KVA; the overall average unit cost should not exceed Rs.40,200 per month per school in respect of government schools and in respect of aided/self-financing schools the overall average unit cost should not exceed 2/3 of Rs.40,200 per month, that is, Rs.26,800 per month, per school.
The unit cost of Rs.40,200 would include among other components mobilisation and demobilisation charges not exceeding 15 per cent of the cost and fuel cost. The local school authorities should use the generator facility only when the EB power supply was not available, which is expected to be only six hours per day.
The district-level panel would approve the hiring charges for individual schools. For government schools, the initial cost would be incurred from PTA fund and special fees in accumulated fund and district common examination fund and the same should be reimbursed. In respect of aided schools and self-financing schools, the school managements should be instructed to hire the generator for the school and the cost, subject to the guidelines in this regard and the approval of the committee, should be reimbursed from the government.
The reimbursement of expenditure met by government/aided/self-finance high and higher secondary schools would be sanctioned separately, based on the proposal from the Director of School Education.
The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) has kept ready around 2,500 generators to distribute to government high schools and higher secondary schools.
A senior official of the TANGEDCO said the State had a total of 2,844 government high schools and 2,488 higher secondary schools.
“The Corporation would be taking efforts to provide uninterrupted power supply to schools wherever possible and in case power cut could not be avoided generators would be distributed,” he added.
