While the State Government continues to accuse the Central Government of apathy and claims to be undertaking various measures to facilitate development, the people in Chief Minister Harish Rawat’s Dharchula Assembly constituency are accusing him of ignoring the deteriorated condition of education here.
The local BJP leaders allege that a total of 468 posts including those of principals and teachers are lying vacant in Government schools of Dharchula constituency. Recently, the youth of the constituency, headed by local BJP leaders travelled about 150 kilometres to protest and submit a memorandum addressed to the CM at the district headquarters in Pithoragarh. However, the repeated complaints, requests and even the recent protest has failed to result in a proactive response from the authorities.
The BJP district spokesman and Dharchula block in-charge Jagat Martoliya said that considering the deteriorated state of education system in Dharchula, one can only imagine the state of education across the State. About nine months have passed since the people of Dharchula elected the CM as their MlA but the condition of the government schools in the area has not improved. He said, “In the Dharchula constituency, the posts of principal are vacant in 26 inter colleges and 12 high schools besides which posts of headmasters are vacant in 16 junior high schools. The posts of 105 school teachers, 188 lecturer teachers (lT) and 121 junior high school assistant teachers are also vacant in the Government schools of the constituency. The people of this border region had elected Rawat as their MlA in the hope that having the CM as their legislator would help resolve the problems being faced in the education and other sectors in Dharchula. However, nine months after his election, the CM has not been able to resolve these problems,” said Martoliya.
Many locals also state that the CM had assured measures for making Dharchula an ideal assembly constituency though with 468 posts of teachers remaining vacant, the conditions here are far from ideal. local BJP youth leader Dinesh Rana said that the party will continue to raise this issue until necessary steps are taken.