As Mercury Dips, Several Students Yet to Recieve Uniform Allowance in Haryana and UP

New Delhi: Although winter started two months ago, students in government schools of Faridabad district in Haryana haven’t yet
received the allowance for uniforms.

The state government provides Rs 800 to each student of Classes I to V and Rs 1,000 to those studying in Classes VI to VIII for winter uniforms. According to a report in The Tribune, an official of the Education Department said around 85,000 students study in
government-run 230 primary and 50 middle schools in the district.

The government deposits the allowance directly into the bank account of each student. As per the department, around 20% of the students don’t have accounts due to technical reasons or not meeting the requisite conditions.

Condemning the delay in the release of the allowance, Chatar Singh, the district president of the Haryana Primary Teachers Association, said that many students are wards of migrant workers. They don’t have local address proof for Aadhar cards and as a result, they are not able to open a bank account.

District Education Officer Munish Chaudhary told The Tribune that she wasn’t aware of the reason behind the delay as the allowance was directly transferred by the higher authorities into the bank accounts of the students. “The matter had been brought to the notice of the higher authorities,” said an official of the district Education department.

Another official of the department said the academic session 2022-23 would end after three months but the students hadn’t received the allowance yet and most of the students studying in these schools belong to financially vulnerable sections.

Not only this, according to another report in The Tribune, more than 16 lakh students enrolled in Classes I to VIII in government schools across the state are yet to get uniform allowance this academic session. The delay in releasing the allowance has forced the parents to make rounds of schools to get updates while many have bought the uniform out of their own pocket to protect the students from the winter.

The allowance is given once every academic session, which commences on April 1.

An official of the Department of School Education had told The Tribune that the details of the Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) of the students had been made mandatory by the state government to disburse uniform and other allowances from this session. Collecting the details of the PPP from 16 lakh students was consuming time, leading to a delay in releasing the allowance. “It will take at least two more weeks to credit the allowance to the students’ bank accounts as the PPP details of all of them are yet to be received from the districts,” he added.

The situation is not just limited to government schools in Haryana. NewsClick had earlier reported that many parents of students in Uttar Pradesh have also not received allowances to purchase school uniforms.

According to records, there are 1 crore 91 lakh students enrolled in 1,35,000 primary schools (class I to VIII) in Uttar Pradesh. Out of these, parents of only 90,000 students have received funds to purchase uniforms and school bags.

The state government had earlier this year declared that Rs 1,100 will be used to credit the bank accounts of students' parents to purchase uniforms. These included shirts, trousers (two sets), sweaters, shoes, socks, and a school bag. Lakhs of students across the state are still waiting for this transfer.