Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) West Bengal chief Dilip Ghosh on Thursday slammed the Bengal government for issuing a circular asking district education officers to send names of government and government-aided schools with “more than 70% minority students” for setting up of dining halls.
Ghosh shared the circular on Twitter and criticised this sort of “segregation”. He wrote: “Why this discrimination between the students on the basis of religion? Is there some other malafide motive behind this segregation? Another conspiracy?” The circular shared by Ghosh has been addressed to an officer in Cooch Behar by the District Officer, Minority Affairs. It was not known if the same was sent to every district.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee said she was not aware of the order earlier, and added that the circular had already been withdrawn.
She explained that that this had been done for “technical reasons”. “The education department does not have funds for the same project in all schools and so it is shared by other relevant departments”, she said. “Funds under minorities affairs department cannot be used in other schools, and thus it was required to identify schools,” said an official.
“Unfortunately, this has been misused politically. But the order has already been withdrawn,” she said.
Later in the day, the department of minority affairs and madrasah education issued a press release to explain their stance. According to the press release, the “state government pools funds from various budgets of various school education-related departments, while also ensuring that the facilities so created are used by all students, without any discrimination whatsoever”.
It said this year, approximately Rs 200 crore has been allocated by the school education department for construction of dining halls under mid-day meal schemes in 4,647 primary and 1,524 upper primary schools, but there is still a demand for dining halls.
Thus, the minority affairs and madrasah education department sanctioned funds to the state-run schools to make up for the shortfall. The same is done for schools with substantial scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students – it is backed by funds from the backward classes welfare department.
“But the assets/facilities created from such pooled funds are open to all,” the press release mentioned. The release also mentioned that the Centre too provides funds for school development where over 25 per cent students are minorities – by the Ministry of Minority Affairs.
“The issue of pooling of funds for development projects needs to be seen in [the] context. The mid-day meal dining halls and other such projects/facilities funded by the Minorities Affairs Department in the State’s schools benefit all students of the schools regardless of their ethnic or social background,” the press release said.
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