Authorities have failed to complete the construction work on girls’ hostels sanctioned by ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) under erstwhile RMSA scheme.
The hostels were approved for educationally backward blocks (EBBs) of J&K with 39 supposed to come up in Kashmir, 24 in Jammu and five in Ladakh.
Even as the hostels were approved in 2012-13, the then state government didn’t start the construction work till 2015.
Later, then education minister Naeem Akhtar got the previous approvals cancelled by the MHRD in the project approval board (PAB) meeting and sought new approvals as per the revised rates.
After the revised approval, the project cost for each girls’ hostel was approved at Rs 1 crore. “But out of 68 girls’ hostels approved, only two have been completed in Jammu region,” an official privy to the development, said.
A senior official in the department said the MHRD joint secretary in the recently held project approval board (PAB) meeting on June 20 in New Delhi reprimanded the officials of state education department for their failure to make the hostels operational.
“Actually, the MHRD had given authorization to school education department for making these hostels functional in rented accommodation till the buildings were completed,” the official said.
The minutes of the meeting clearly state that out of 68 girls hostels sanctioned to the state under the erstwhile RMSA scheme, “not a single hostel has been made functional so far”.
According to the official, the work on 59 hostels is in progress while seven are yet to be taken up.
“After getting revised approval the work could not be started due to five month long summer uprising in Kashmiri which delayed setting up of these hostels for the girl students enrolled in secondary and higher secondary schools,” the official said.
The construction work on these hostels is being executed by Roads and buildings (R&B) department.
As already reported by Greater Kashmir, in September 2017, the secretary MHRD on his visit to Kashmir to review the implementation of centrally sponsored schemes, had directed the education department to expedite the work. However, the authorities are yet to complete any of the buildings in Kashmir region.
State project director Smarga Shiksha, Tufail Ahmad Matto said the work was going on and funds were already released to the executing agency- R&B department. “We have been assured by the department that work on 20 girls hostels will be completed by the current financial year,” he said.