The Defence Ministry has approved the Army proposal to construct and repair more than 130 educational schools run by it. The repairs will be carried from within the Army budget. The annual expenditure on this project is Rs 160 crores.
Giving details of the project, officials said here on Wednesday that while 130 schools are located on defence land all over the country, seven others are on private land or on lease. The Army runs these schools from within its own budget. However, in 2014-15 construction and repair or maintenance of these institutions came to a halt after the government asked the Army to get the schools running on defence land regularized.
Though it was a procedural issue of seeking permission to have schools on defence land, the Army could not spend money on maintenance or constructing new schools. In some cases, some schools were half finished as the Army was not able to undertake construction.
Faced with this situation, the Army brass took up the case with the ministry and former Defence Secretary S Mitra, who retired last week pursued the matter and finally the nod was given to ahead with the project, officials said. At an average, Rs 160 crores are spent annually for construction and maintenance, they said adding at least eight to nine schools are constructed in this budget.