Red tape thwarts computer literacy in schools

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NEW DELHI: Trust our bureaucracy to kill the most brilliant ideas by sheer sloth. The Information Communication Technologies scheme, aimed at bridging the digital divide, would be facing a massive cut in funds in the coming fiscal. All because the HRD ministry was slow in getting financial clearances and its expenditure on the scheme has been nil so far. The scheme ran as computer literacy programme in the 9th Five-Year Plan. It did well and about 3,000 schools across the country got computers. But that was the end of it. When the 10th Plan period began in 2002, the ministry made no requisition to continue or revise the scheme. When it finally woke up, funds had already been withdrawn. So, it decided to revise the scheme. An estimate of Rs 800 crore for computerising 9,308 schools over five years was made. Each school was to get Rs 5 lakh from the Centre and Rs 1.5 lakh from their respective state governments to install 10 computers. Anticipating that the External Finance Committee (EFC) will clear the scheme, the finance ministry allocated Rs 111 crore in 2003-04. But the papers did not move and in the revised estimates, the allocation was slashed to Rs 25 crore. In 2004-05, it again allocated Rs 97 crore for the scheme. But as there was no expenditure, it cut the allocation to Rs 27 crore. After a long wait, the EFC cleared the proposal in December last year. To decide allocations for 2005-06, when the finance ministry took stock, it found that the expenditure so far has been nil. Irked, the finance ministry conveyed to the secondary education division that in the next year, it would only get Rs 50 crore. The latter had asked for Rs 200 crore to computerise 3,000 more schools. The HRD ministry claims that before March 31, it will spend all of Rs 27 crore. "The funds will be released soon. The delay was because of EFC clearance," said an official. But there is another problem. In the years since the scheme lapsed, very little was paid for maintenance of computers already installed. "Each school was to get a maintenance fund of Rs 1.34 lakh. We will try to give the arrears from the Rs 27 crore we have for this year. But the finance division still has to take the final view on this," the HRD ministry official said. ßàüõh`‚hèeÜh`‚éêg h   » ¼ 89BCr s ð ñ qr óôàú¶+PSú
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