66% RTE admissions done in dist; many schools boycott it

Nagpur: In Nagpur district, around 65% of RTE admissions have been completed, according to data released by the education department. Many schools, however, have decided to boycott the process till their demand for pending reimbursements is fulfilled by the government.
RTE quota admissions are for 25% of a class capacity and the selection plus seat allotment process is handled by the state government. After seat allotment is done, the student has to complete the admission process by physically submitting required documents (birth certificate etc) to the school.
In district this academic year, 5,611 students were selected through online lottery draw. By Monday, 3,805 students had completed the admission process. In Nagpur, there are still many schools who are boycotting the admission process either directly or indirectly. The latter method is by delaying the admission by citing some or the other irregularity, of which distance is a key reason.
In RTE, priority for admission is given to the student who resides closest to the school of his/her choice. It’s common for parents to provide fake address proof through rental agreements and avail of free admission in big brand CBSE schools.
Rajendra Dayma, former president and executive member of Independent English Schools Association (IESA), said, “For the last so many years, the government has been delaying payment either in full or part of many of our members. So this year, we have made up our minds that till our past dues are cleared, we shall not complete admission process.”
Sachin Kalbande, founder-president of RTE Foundation, said, “The state government is not releasing complete corpus of funds which are being sent by the Centre. I found out through RTI that the central government pays over and above the amount which the state pays to us. We recently met education minister Varsha Gaikwad and apprised her of the situation.”
Kalbande claimed that the education minister agreed to release Rs200 crore to schools. However, no such GR has been issued so far.