UP govt stops grants to 46 madrasas for violating ‘teaching standards’

The process of verifying aided madrasas, which get grants in the form of teachers’ salaries, was ordered in July by the state government.

After an almost three-month-long physical verification of around 560 aided madrasas in UP, the state government has stopped grants to 46 of them on grounds that they were “violating the basic standards of infrastructure and teaching”. The process of verifying aided madrasas, which get grants in the form of teachers’ salaries, was ordered in July by the state government. During this exercise, the district inspector of schools as well as district minority welfare officers were asked to inspect each madrasa, look into its infrastructure and strength of teachers and also to check their qualification. Later, the government had also asked all recognised madrasas to submit their details, including the number of teachers and their qualifications, online.

“We stopped grant to these madrasas as they failed on basic norms like building, infrastructure, teachers etc. Despite what people might say, the fact is that the minority welfare department was so far running as a correctional welfare department, where there were no records of any madrasa in the state,” said Uttar Pradesh Minority Welfare Minister Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary.

Chaudhary further told The Indian Express, “It is in fact under the Yogi Adityanath government that the department has actually started working as a minority welfare department. During our exercise, we came across madrasas which did not have their own teachers and were sharing teachers, madrasas which did not have their own building or even land. Grant to all such madrasas has been stopped.”
He further said that on a portal launched by the state government for madrasas, where it has been made mandatory for all recognised madrasas to upload their details, so far, 1000 such institutions have already submitted their details. There are about 7,500 recognised madrasas in the state.