Uttarakhand govt to transfer money to students for books

DEHRADUN: The Uttarakhand government has decided that money for the books provided to the students of government schools in the state will be transferred directly to their bank accounts through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. 

R Meenakshi Sundaram, education secretary of Uttarakhand said, "The book distribution was not possible due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We have decided to transfer the money directly to the bank accounts of the students".

Earlier, the government used to distribute books to the eight lakh students studying in the government schools, from class 1-12.

The students studying in class 1-5 will be given Rs 250 while the students till class 8 will get Rs 400 for books. The students till class 12, coming under the SC and ST category will be given Rs 700-1200.

As Schools from class 6-12 will reopen in Uttarakhand from February 8, the state government will be facing challenges to maintain Covid safety norms in around 9000 government and private schools in the hill state.

The Covid-19 test will be mandatory for all students studying in boarding schools, but not for day scholars. Schools reopened for students of class 10 and 12 in November last year since November 2 last year in the state. 

Schools in the hill state reopened for Classes 10, 12 from November 2 but the government had decided to keep other classes closed.

Meanwhile, online classes are being continued for the remaining year already raising many concerns such as the reach of online mode across the state due to no networks zones in hilly terrains. 

At present, there are over one lakh students and teachers in day schools in class 10 and class 12. Officials of the state education department said that the numbers are too high to test them all within the stipulated time period.