State waives fees for drought-hit kids

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has waived off school and junior college fees of students from drought-affected areas. In addition to this, practical, marksheet and certificate charges, which were not waived off till now, will be scrapped as well.

The government will directly reimburse the fees via RTGS (real-time gross settlement) to the bank accounts of students of schools and junior colleges or their parents. The state has also issued a government resolution (GR) pertaining to the same.

During the monsoon session of the state legislature, the issue of fee reimbursement was raised. The officials apprised Ashish Shelar, school education and sports minister that reimbursement was being given only for school fees in drought-affected areas.

Practical, mark-sheet and certificate charges were not reimbursed to the students. Mr Shelar had told the state Assembly that all the fees would be reimbursed.

Whenever drought is declared in the state, as per practice, schools send proposals about school fee reimbursement to an education inspector, who forwards it to an education officer and the school education department approves the proposal and sends the funds.

In a tweet, Mr Shelar said that the reimbursement for past payments would be done directly to the bank accounts of students or their parents through RTGS. The state had announced drought in 151 tehsils on October 31, 2018. Out of the 151 tehsils, 112 were facing severe drought. Later, the state government announced drought in 318 revenue circles and an additional 931 villages.

The government directed the state-owned MSRTC to issue free renewal of passes to students of schools and junior colleges.