Hry's school admission form creates flutters

Amid controversy over school students in Haryana being asked to fill a lengthy admission form giving details like if their parents are engaged in any "unclean occupation", Department of School Education today clarified that no new term has been introduced in the form by the present state government.

The state government's reaction came after the opposition hit out at the Khattar dispensation.

"No new term has been coined much less introduced in the form by the present Government of Haryana," an official spokesman of Department of School Education said here in a release.

On the use of a particular adjective, "unclean occupation", with the vocation of parents, he said, "the said adjective is and has ever since been a part of a scheme of Pre-Matric Scholarship of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, first revised on January 21, 2009 and last on July 1, 2011."
The spokesman said that "the school admission form is intended to ensure that every student is enabled to receive full benefit of every scheme of Government of India and Government of Haryana directly in her account in case such benefit is monetary."
The spokesman said that those raising objection to yet another measure of the Haryana government to ensure that benefits of all schemes reach "to the last in the spirit of Antoyodaya is nothing but an instance of petty mindedness."