Red tape strangles school

rupa vello, a class ii student of a non-formal school of baraberia village in titagarh nursed an ambition of becoming a teacher. however, her dreams might die an early death if her school, run by the vivekananda samaj, an ngo, stops running in march. the samaj ran about 100 schools with donations from the local people in the panchayat areas of titagarh and khardah.affluent village folk chipped in with money, furniture and even land. later, the centre sanctioned about rs 2,75,000. initially, teachers who had only passed school, were appointed. later, unemployed graduates from the villages were also taken in.at the schools, each teacher takes care of about 25 students up to class iv and are paid rs 200 as honorarium every month. incidentally, teachers of 75 schools of the samaj, that are yet to get the central grants, still teach for free. one such teacher, moyna, a student of class xi, after taking class in the morning, goes to attend her own school and after that gives private tuition to pay for her own education. yet, she never missed a class. "if i do not teach, the poor of my village will remain illiterate. i feel i am doing my duty," she said. sambhu biswas has a tough time managing his biochemic practice and his little darlings at school. a little late and they shout their heart out. yet he loves his time with them and he dreads the day when the school would close down. the ngo met its first hurdle in october 2000. they received a letter from the central government that the centre would discontinue the project from march 2001 and transfer it to the state government. so, the samaj applied afresh to the state government on march 28, 2001, for 100 schools. the department got back demanding certain modifications in the number. the samaj duly obliged on april 6. the department was not satisfied. it said the schools had to be divided into 40 and 60 and fresh applications submitted. the samaj did so on may 14. the state suggested further modifications and a new application had to be submitted on july 2. also, the department demanded that the number of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes be mentioned. this was done on july 20. finally, after several rounds of modifications, the samaj was called for a meeting on december 27 where it was told that the applications would soon be forwarded to delhi. however, in october, the samaj was told that their application awaited the director's signature. further enquiry in december revealed that following sanctions, their application would be sent to delhi. "their attitude makes me feel that primary education in the villages is not the government's responsibility and that it is doing me a favour by sanctioning it," sighed sadhan chakraborty, secretary of the society. the deputy secretary of the state education department, ramkrishna das, said he would have to examine the documents. he even snubbed the samaj saying that if it was a state government project, there would be no problem in getting money. when told the project had been delayed by a year, das said the samaj should not run the schools.