SHILLONG: Meghalaya State Planning Board has taken cognizance of the sudden halt of Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF) by the Central Government for construction of nine model schools and hostels.
Speaking to media persons after the working group 3 of the Board held a review meeting with the Education department on the financial and physical achievements of the plan scheme projects in the department, co chairman of State Planning Board, John F Kharshiing said the department had already taken up the matter with the Centre but the Centre had not yet responded.
He also informed that many of the projects were 70-80 per cent completed and now the projects are heading nowhere due to the sudden decision of the Union Government to stop funding them.
Earlier, the working group lauded the department for increasing the salary of teachers especially SSA teachers despite the various financial constraints faced by the State in view of the ban on coal mining.
With regards to the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme in the state, he said that the major challenge in the implementation of the scheme was payment of salary of cooks and helpers who are paid only Rs one thousand per month and State Government has asked the Union Government to revise their salaries.
On the training of untrained teachers, the working group was informed that the last date for the enrollment of untrained teachers to enroll for training programme has been extended from September 15 to September 30.
The working group even asked the State education department to lay emphasis on method of teaching of science and mathematics subjects as Government was now facing scarcity of maths and science teachers.
It was also informed that all the schools in Meghalaya had been covered under the MIS system and the system eliminates wrong doings such as ghost schools and ghost teachers.
About the scholarships, Kharshiing informed that the Union Government had taken measures to ensure that one person was not provided scholarships on more than one occasion.
He however added that there were some minor challenges as sometimes students gave wrong IFSC code besides they did spelling mistakes.
Giving figures, Kharshiing informed that in the financial year 2015-16, 46,588 students in Meghalaya had received their scholarships through direct transfer while the numbers increased to 54000 in 2016-17.
