‘Parents in unclean job?’ Haryana govt asks students

GURGAON: The Haryana government has kicked off a row by circulating an admission form in government and private schools across the state that seeks to know if the student suffers from genetic disorders or whether the parents are engaged in any “unclean occupation”.

The form with 100 sub-heads given to students across the state, including Gurgaon, also seeks Aadhaar and PAN numbers, religion, caste, income and bank account details of parents, prompting accusations of “racial and religious profiling” from the opposition Congress.

“The kind of private information of parents being sought is the height of insanity. Calling vocation of parents unclean is absurd,” said Congress’s Randeep Singh Surjewala.

Haryana government said the form was intended to ensure that every student in the state received the full benefit of every central and state scheme.

“It’s surprising that parents who admittedly pay tax on time and are not being asked to share their PAN number could object to disclosing their annual income when practically all scholarship schemes have an income ceiling,” government said.

Haryana government sources told TOI that the state education department had been using the form in government schools for years and it was being sent to students of private schools for the past two years “without anyone ever reading the fine print”.

While private schools in Gurgaon have made it clear to students that the information in the form is being sought by the state education department, parents are reluctant to share data which they say invades their privacy.

“The recent form... is too sketchy. Such information invades the privacy of an individual and has little relevance to the child’s admission,” said Santosh Tiwari, whose child studies in Ridge Valley School.“I had asked the authorities to define ‘unclean occupation’ and they had no answer. We ask parents to leave this part,” Aditi Mishra, principal of Delhi Public School, Sector 45, said.