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Himachal assemby winter session: Opposition walks out over closure of institutions
Chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said 1,865 institutions of various departments were denotified, merged, or closed by the Congress government ensuing a heated debate over the issue, which the Opposition has been raking up in the past as well
The legislators from the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a walk-out on the fourth and final day of the winter session of the Himachal legislative assembly on Saturday amid discussion over the closure of hundreds of institutions by the Congress government during its tenure so far.
Chief minister (CM) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, in a written response to a question asked by BJP legislator Randhir Sharma, said 1,865 institutions of various departments were denotified, merged, or closed by the Congress government ensuing a heated debate over the issue, which the Opposition has been raking up in the past as well.
The government also revealed that it has opened 37 new institutions and notified 103 institutions during its tenure so far.
While Opposition legislators accused the Congress government of pick and choose in closing the institutions, Sukhu attacked the previous BJP government for opening hundreds of institutions without any need and only for electoral benefits. During the debate over the issue, BJP legislators walked out and speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania said the walk-out was uncalled for as ample time was given to the Opposition legislators to raise their concerns.
Among the institutions, which were either denotified, closed, or merged, 1,094 were of the elementary education department, followed by 257 of the health and family welfare department, 117 of the revenue department, 101 of the animal husbandry department, and 91 of the higher education department.
In reply to Randhir on the reasons for the closure of these institutions, the CM said hundreds of institutions opened by the previous BJP government were not need-based and many were opened only six months before the election in 2022. Even some schools were opened where there were no students. We surveyed these institutions and brought the matter to the cabinet.
“We opened only need-based institutions and we plan to open more institutions where there is need after taking into consideration various factors like population and geography,” Sukhu said.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition (LoP) Jai Ram Thakur said, “It is surprising to see that over 1,800 institutions were closed, we earlier thought it was only around 1,000-1,200.”
“The Congress government led by CM Sukhu closed the institutions with the intention of vengeance against the previous BJP government. 1,094 primary schools have been closed and it is not possible that these many schools did not have students. The Congress government snatched the right to education from thousands of students. You need to be rational. 257 health institutions were closed and did you do an assessment of these before closing them? CM should answer these questions,” he added.
Notably, CM Sukhu also said if they were the true servants of the public then what was the need to open institutions after April 2022? “We closed down the institutions which were opened after April 2022. Of the 1094 schools which were merged or closed, 675 schools had zero enrolment. 419 schools had less than 5 students. There is no information about any dropout of students from anywhere. Similar decisions have been taken in several other states where the BJP is in power.
Education minister Rohit Thakur told the house that “By the end of 2022, there were around 350 schools without teachers in the state and there were 3,400 single teacher schools. Our government, through rationalisation, has made new appointments and now there are only 150 without teacher schools and the number of single teacher schools has come down to around 2,600.”
The Opposition BJP has consistently attacked the ruling Congress government for closing down hundreds of institutions in the state after coming to power. BJP had made it an election issue during the previous Lok Sabha polls and by-elections held earlier this year.
