Punjab Government on Thursday finalised plan to spend Rs3,541 crore on flagship education schemes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), Mid-day Meal scheme.
Approval for annual work plan or budget for these flagship schemes for 2016-17 was accorded during the Executive Committee meeting of these schemes held under the chairmanship of the state Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal on Thursday.
Under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme, an amount of Rs1770.96 crore is planned to be spent on various components including teachers’ salary, additional classrooms, civil works, toilets and drinking water, academic support, computer aided learning, uniforms, among others.
It was decided to issue children school uniform specifications to all the schools for final procurement.
The services of Punjabi University, Patiala, shall be used to analyse the State level Achievement Survey (SlAS) report and to suggest the future plans to Education department.
Chief Secretary was informed that department has developed websites namely ssapunjab.org and epunjabschool.gov.in wherein all the information related to education department is uploaded.
Various applications like SSA, RMSA, MDM monitoring, grievance disposal, health check up monitoring system etc are hosted on these websites and applications are being developed for mobile governance in department.
SCERT has been entrusted with the work to prepare syllabus for introduction of digital knowledge in primary classes.
Under RMSA scheme, Rs1422 crore shall be spent across the state including additional classrooms, integrated science labs, libraries, art and craft rooms, toilets, teachers’ salaries of upgraded schools and meritorious schools, ICT, inclusive education, among others.
Under Mid-day meal scheme, the plan to spend Rs 348.33 crore was approved to be submitted to the Central Government which included mid-day meal to 9,81,887 primary students and 7,06,507 upper primary students.
Chief Secretary directed the department to send utilization certificates of all the funds spent to the Centre so that the next year funds can be received on time.
He also directed the DGSE to run school level campaigns to complete the Aadhaar enrolment of the students. The integration of Aadhaar with various schemes shall result in elimination of bogus students if any especially in Mid-day meal scheme.