Mumbai education budget: ₹16 crore for Covid-19 essentials in civic schools

Supplying Covid-19-related essentials, opening 10 new Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools and rebranding civic schools – are some initiatives the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will spend on, as part of its education budget for 2021-22

Supplying Covid-19-related essentials, opening 10 new Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools and rebranding civic schools – are some initiatives the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will spend on, as part of its education budget for 2021-22.

Joint municipal commissioner Ramesh Pawar and education committee chairperson Sandhya Joshi release the BMC Year 2021-22 Education Budget, at BMC headquarters. (Bhushan Koyande/ Hindustan Times)

On Wednesday morning, the civic body announced its budgetary estimates for the year and allocated ₹2,945.78 crore for education in 2021-22. This is a marginal increase from last year when BMC had set aside ₹2,944.59 for its schools. In the backdrop of the Covid-19 outbreak and anticipating reopening of schools soon, a provision of nearly ₹16 crore is set aside for procuring infrared thermometers, soaps, hand wash and masks for students. Hand sanitisers will not be distributed to students as they are not advisable for young children, as per health experts.

This year, the civic body will also open 10 new CBSE schools in different parts of the city for which there is a budgetary estimate of ₹2 crore. These schools will operate from existing BMC buildings for students from pre-primary to Class 6, and education will be free of cost.

Continuing the civic body’s previous rebranding efforts, nomenclatures of all its schools will be changed to Mumbai Public School supplemented by the original school name. The civic body has designed a new logo for its schools.

To ensure standardisation of educational content in balwadis across different mediums in the city that will be implemented this year on, BMC has created a training programme in partnership with UNICEF, Pratham, Save the Children India and Rocket Learning. Similarly, child protection teams will be constituted at the school and ward level to address complaints concerning rights violation and other student grievances “These teams will hear complaints from students and parents and conduct awareness sessions about good and bad touch, and the rights of children,” said Mahesh Palkar, education officer, BMC.

Some of the civic body’s previously announced initiatives like the virtual training centre in 480 BMC schools, Vidyan Kutuhal Bhawan for science-related learning and financial support to meritorious SSC students for their future education are retained and have been allotted a budget. Despite allocating funds worth ₹20 crores for the installation of CCTV cameras in 2020, work on the same is yet to begin and the initiative finds no budgetary allocation this year.

Some new additions

Supplies of Covid-19 related essential healthcare equipment: ₹15.90 crore

Developing a school playground in a phased manner: ₹5 lakh

Opening 10 CBSE schools: ₹2 crore

Career counselling programmes: ₹21.10 lakh

Old initiatives continued

Virtual Training Centres: ₹13.15 crore

Online drawing competition: ₹50 lakh

Digital classrooms: ₹28.58 crore