The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) will sanction Rs 95 crore for construction of 5,000 houses for teachers in rural areas. | |
| The Karnataka government has taken up the ambitious scheme to provide houses to teachers in rural areas to encourage them to stay in villages. |
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| The Nabard will partially finance the scheme and the state government will pool the remaining amount, Karnataka minister for primary and secondary education Basavaraj Horatti said. |
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| Construction of houses in the rural areas is an important component of the government's policy to compulsorily post newly-appointed teachers in rural areas for at least five years. This came into force through an ordinance. |
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| Initially, the construction will be taken up in select 39 taluks identified as most backward by the Dr D M Nanjundappa Committee report on redressal of regional imbalances in the state. In the next phase, other taluks will be covered. The construction will commence during the next financial year after budgetary approval. |
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| The minister informed that the houses will be built in clusters of 8-10 at the panchayat level instead of the village level, as planned earlier. Each house will have a total built-up area of around 600 square feet including two bedrooms, kitchen, toilet and a sit-out. Each house will be built at a cost of Rs 4.6 lakh. |
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| The rent allowance of teachers who are allotted these houses will be deducted from their salaries and this will be used to clear the loan. |
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| Horatti said that the health card scheme for 75 lakh children, which was to be implemented from November 14 this year, was delayed as the smart cards were not ready in time. |
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| The scheme is being implemented at a cost of Rs 10 crore under the centrally-sponsored Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan (SSA). He said that the cards have been dispatched to the taluk offices and they will soon be distributed to children in schools. |
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| The deputy directors of education department will coordinate with the respective deputy commissioners and draw up the health check-up plan under the scheme. |
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| The districts will be divided into two parts and the doctors of the health departments will prepare health profiles of schoolchildren with the help of private medical practitioners through the local IMA units. |
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| Designed on the Gujarat model, the health cards will entitle the children to free health check-up during entire 10 years of their stay in school. |
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