‘Govt will tweak student admission form if needed’

Furore over the Haryana government’s ‘Student Admission Form’ seeking Aadhaar number of students, their religion, and asking applicants whether their parents are engaged in any “unclean occupation”, prompted the State on Wednesday to clarify that the information was being collected for “smooth implementation of schemes”.

‘Need data for schemes’

“We need data so that various government schemes for different categories can be implemented smoothly. Most of the information in the admission form is optional. However, we will examine the content of the form and make changes, if required,” Additional Chief Secretary (Haryana Education Department) Dheera Khandelwal told The Hindu, adding that unnecessary controversy was being created over the issue.

“A question on the form asks whether parents of the applicant are engaged in an “unclean occupation”. This is related to the Centre-sponsored scheme ‘Pre-Matric Scholarships to children of those engaged in Unclean Occupations’. This scheme has been there since 2011. Data is being collected for many years so that the benefit of the scheme reaches the beneficiaries,” she said.

Reiterating allegations he made on Tuesday, Congress communications in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala said that the information sought was an attempt at “racial and religious profiling of parents and students”. He demanded that Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar withdraw the form and apologise to the parents.

‘Not comfortable’

Aditi Misra, Principal of Delhi Public School in Sector 45, said that they had got the form last year and they were supposed to be submitted before January 15, but “neither parents nor we were comfortable with the information sought”.

“The parents did not want to share their account numbers. One of the questions was about clean and unclean occupation. But even we could not make out as to what it meant. We sought the list of unclean occupations from the government officials, but they too were clueless. So we left the column blank. I think every profession is clean,” said Ms. Misra.

She added that too much information was being sought in the form and the school could not understand the purpose behind it.

Ms. Misra said that the school authorities sought only basic information from the parents and did not ask for their PAN, IT return and occupation.

“We decided to seek just relevant information and uploaded it on the website of the department. We did not ask for any information that amounts to intrusion of privacy,” she said.

‘Most gave information’

Sudha Goyal, director of Scottish High International School, said that they got the form around seven months ago. He added that most of the parents were willing to share the information sought in the document.

“A handful of parents might have some reservations, but a majority of them were comfortable,” said Ms. Goyal.