Assam govt releases Rs 96.21 cr grant, holds back grants to 11,480 schools

Assam Government released Rs 96.21 crore as School Grants to 40,970 Lower Primary and Upper Primary schools on Sunday, said the state Education Minister Ranoj Pegu.

The minister said that grants to 11,480 schools have been held back as some teachers from these schools have not updated their staff profiles in the Siksha Setu portal.

"Assam Government has released Rs 96.21 crore as School Grants to 40,970 Lower Primary and Upper Primary schools today. Grants to 11,480 schools have been held back as some teachers from these schools have not updated their staff profiles in the Siksha Setu portal. Once they update, grants will be released," Ranoj Pegu said.

A total of 2,42,114 teaching and non-teaching staff in 45,983 Government and provincialised schools, 2,08,531 of them have updated their profile in Siksha Setu and 33,583 (26117 of Elementary and 7466 of Secondary Schools) staff are yet to update their profile, the minister said.

The Assam government, in April, launched its own Siksha Setu Asom Portal App to collect information about schools, teachers, students and other information.

Earlier Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said, "From April 24-30 we will be observing the School Profile Updation Week, wherein 360-degree information on schools will be uploaded in the Siksha Setu Asom Portal."

The school profile will consist of school category, management, address, school management committee (SMC) contact details, Head Master contact details, SMC contact details, nearest institution details, Legislative Assembly, Parliamentary Constituency, GPS location with photograph, land details.

School master of UDISE+ (Unified District Information System for Education Plus) will be used in Siksha Setu Asom Portal, since UDISE+ is updated annually, Siksha Setu Asom will be a dynamic portal which will be updated regularly, he said.

"The Siksha Setu App is a visionary initiative to make administration in school education (government & private) easier. The data will be helpful for the government to implement the new National Education Policy (NEP) in the state. We will collect the information from all government schools, private schools and central schools," the Minister said.

For this, the Assam government has provided around 53,000 tablets to the school authorities.