Education Dept yet to extend their temporary recognition
 

Chandigarh :
As many as 3,200 private schools in Haryana are on the verge of closure with the fate of nearly 10 lakh children enrolled in these schools hanging in balance, as the state’s Education Department is yet to extend the schools’ temporary recognition.
These schools have been awaiting permanent recognition from the government, although these have been in operation for decades. This is due to some deficiencies in buildings and other norms specified by the government.

Till now, the department had been issuing temporary recognition every year to these schools, but this time, their latest recognition, which expired on March 31, has not been renewed.

“Till we get recognition, we cannot apply to the Haryana School Education Board for affiliation. The last date for filing for affiliation from the board is July 6. We can, however, apply for it by paying a late fee of Rs 5,000 for the next 10 days. Our option will cease after that, endangering the future of lakhs of children,” said a school owner.
Till last year, temporary recognition was provided by deputy commissioners in the district. This year, the responsibility of providing recognition was taken away from deputy commissioners and committees were formed under the district education officers (DEOs) and district elementary education officers (DEEOs). However, the committees have failed to come up with their reports so far.

Kulbhushan Sharma, president of the National Independent School Association (NISA), claimed that the BJP government had promised permanent recognition to such schools after coming to power.

“The building and other norms of the government are grossly impractical. We have been demanding that the government should relax the norms and provide permanent recognition to all schools so that the hassle of applying temporary recognition every year comes to an end,” he said.

Sources said out of 3,200 private schools awaiting recognition, 2,161 provided high and senior secondary education. The rest 1,039 are middle schools.

As per the government norms, private schools up to Class X should have a land of 2,000 square meters in case of a single floor and 1,500 sq m for a double-storeyed building.

For senior secondary schools providing arts and commerce streams, the land requirement is 3,000 sq m for single-storeyed building and 2,250 sq m for the double-storeyed one. For senior secondary schools with the science stream, the requirement is 4,000 sq m and 3000 sq m for single and double story, respectively.
Besides, high schools need to have a minimum of 16 rooms. The senior secondary schools providing arts and commerce education should have 18 rooms, while those with the science stream should have 22 rooms.

Rajiv Rattan, Director, School Education, Haryana, said the department had sought reports from the DEOs regarding these schools, but these reports were awaited.
“The moment we receive the reports, we will take decision on the recognition and the schools will be provided time to apply for affiliation with the Board,” he added.

Karnal :
Congress workers led by state president Ashok Tanwar took out a procession here on Monday and broke empty pitchers and tubelights over scarcity of water and electricity in the state.

Raising slogans against the government, the protesters alleged that residents of the state had been facing shortage of drinking water and erratic power supply.
Tanwar said that the BJP government had failed on all fronts. The government was not serious in finding solutions to problems being faced by the residents.
Instead of providing regular electricity supply, the government was busy in increasing rates of power units.

New Delhi :
Rebel BJP MP from Kurukshetra Raj Kumar Saini categorically spelled out  here on Monday that his association with the party was “practically over”.

“Although I am still a BJP MP, my relationship with the party is done and dusted,” Saini said. He said he was awaiting registration of his political outfit.

The party would put up nominees in all 10 Lok Sabha seats and 90 Assembly constituencies in the state in the upcoming parliamentary and Assembly elections next year, he said.

Outlining his future, he said he  would contest the Assembly election on his party symbol and not the Lok Sabha election. His clarified that he had not spoken to BJP leaders in the Centre and state in three years.

He said his option to join a BJP-led NDA or front planned by opposition parties was open. He said he would not be part of any anti-BJP conglomeration featuring the Congress.

“Congress leaders  have done nothing in the past 70 years except invoking names of Gandhi family to serve their petty politically interests. The first family of the Congress  has belied expectations of people,” he said.

Although he was vocal in his criticism of the BJP, he reserved comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Talking about the structure of his new party, he said the spadework had been done.

It would be almost the same as the Loktantra Suraksha Manch, under which he had been campaigning for three years, he said. The name of the party would more or less match that of the manch, he said.

The manifesto of the new party would feature issues for which he had been campaigning under the banner of the manch for the past three years, he said.
It would include demand for reservation to all castes on the basis of their numerical strength and social justice, he pointed out.

“The backward classes and other backward classes had overwhelmingly voted for the BJP in 2014 in the name of Narendra Modi,”  he said.

The electorate would cast their votes on the basis of performance in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, he said. He  declined to dwell  further into the matter.

Punjab comes ninth with less than one fourth of Haryana’s revenue

Chandigarh :
Despite being a small state with barely 2 per cent of the geographical area of the country, Haryana has achieved number one position in the per capita collection of the revenue in the first financial year of the GST regime, leaving much bigger and prosperous states behind.

Not only this, the state is also ranked fifth in the country in the total contribution towards revenue during this period.

Placed way behind at the ninth position, Punjab’s per capita revenue of Rs 456.40 is less than 25 per cent of Haryana’s Rs 1876.97.

Besides, with the generation of 1,60,964 e-way bills till June 22, Haryana is fourth after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat in this regard.

However, despite its collections of Rs 4,758 crore per month, the state ends up getting barely Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,300 crore per month in its kitty as the GST is a consumption-based tax and Haryana is among the biggest exporters (to other states) of goods and services.

Due to its geographical advantage, a sizeable area of the state falls under the national capital region (NCR) and towns like Gurugram, Manesar, Faridabad, Sonipat etc have industries and services providers which export a plethora of goods from household items to automobiles as well as services provided by software industry to other states.

Sanjeev Kaushal, Additional Chief Secretary, Excise and Taxation Department, Haryana, said that from August last year to March this year, Haryana collected Rs 8536.40 crore as State GST (SGST), Rs 5371.88 crore as Central GST (CGST), Rs 20115.65 crore as Integrated GST (IGST) and Rs 2794.52 crore as Cess, making the total revenue collection of Rs 36818.45 crore.

“Therefore, the average collection per month under all Acts of the GST from the State of Haryana was Rs 4602.3 Cr. As per the data available, the State ranked fifth in the country among all states in terms of total contribution to the GST revenue. The state of Haryana ranked behind the much larger States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Naidu and Gujarat. With total population of the state being 2.54 crore, Haryana has recorded the highest per capita revenue of Rs 1876.97. Punjab is placed at the ninth position with per capita revenue of Rs 456.40,” Kaushal added.

While Haryana collected a total revenue of Rs 36818.45 crore, only Rs 8536.40 crore out of this was towards the SGST, which entirely goes to the state.

The state also received Rs 1641.17 crore by way of the IGST settlement and Rs 667 crore as provisional GST settlement during this period.

“Suppose, an automobile company sells a large consignment of cars to another state, the IGST will be charged immediately. But the settlement is a gradual process that happens as and when the vehicles are sold to an end buyer,” explained a source.
As the Centre assures the states a minimum of 14 percent hike in the revenue earned in the preceding year, Haryana also received Rs 1199 crore as compensation from the Centre for revenue less recovered than the protected revenue.
The GST was rolled out across the country from July 1 last year.

During the process of migration, 1.98 lakh dealers registered under the VAT and Central Sales Tax and 27561 taxpayers registered under the Central Excise and Service Tax migrated to GST.

The tax base under the GST has widened significantly as 155970 new business entities were registered under the GST in the year 2017-18, making a widening of the tax base by a whopping 71 percent.

“Our officers have worked very hard and used the technology to the optimum levels to ensure that the revenues to which the government was entitled were not evaded,” said Kaushal.

Chandigarh :
Hisar MP and INLD leader Dushyant Chautala on Sunday demanded that the Haryana Government’s decision to hire private firms for recruitment to Group C and D posts in the School Education Department should be scrapped.

Addressing a press conference here, Dushyant said that a legal notice for privatising recruitment on contractual basis had been served on the Additional Chief Secretary, School Education, Haryana, for violating the constitution and overlooking the provisions of reservation.

“The CM office empanelled 19 companies, most of them from Gujarat, to recruit people against the vacant posts. Each company, essentially security agency, was assigned districts for the same. As many as 3,000 jobs, including that of JBT teachers, have been given away like this at the cost of Haryana’s unemployed youth,” he claimed, adding that the empanelled companies were charging 2.01 per cent as human resource fee to fill these vacancies.

Dushyant questioned the need for these private agencies given the fact that the government was spending crores on maintaining the Haryana Staff Selection Board and employment exchanges.

“This has been done to benefit the shortlisted companies. Also, one company belongs to a BJP leader who has 60 per cent share in it, making it clear that this project is essentially another way of serving vested interests,” the MP maintained.
Alleging that the state government was preparing ground for privatisation of education, the MP said that anti-people and anti-education policy of the government would adversely impact the equality of opportunity right to seek employment.
He also added that by adopting the “Gujarat model” of outsourcing, the government would also render the Haryana Staff Selection Commission and the employment exchanges redundant.

Quoting information received under the RTI Act, he said that in 12 districts of the state, there were 2,62,768 registered unemployed youth. “Of the total unemployed, only 290 have been provided jobs by the government which is barely 0.1 per cent of the total registered unemployed. Under the much-touted scheme to provide employment of 100 hours to the unemployed youth, only 9,948 have been provided employment for 100 hours which is only 3 per cent of the registered youth under the scheme,” he said.
He asked the government to stop playing politics in the name of the youth and warned that soon “Rozgar Mera Adhikar” movement would be launched to secure justice for the youth.

On Health Minister Anil Vij calling him a “drug addict” after the latter gave out information on an alleged scam in the Health Department, Dushyant said that he would file a defamation case in Hisar court against the minister on July 7

RTI info says…

• 2,62,768  registered unemployed youths in 12 districts of the state.
• 290 youths (0.1%) have been provided with jobs
• 9,948 youths (3%) provided with employment for 100 hours