Shaktisinh slams Gujarat govt on education and other fronts

Ahmedabad, 21 July, 2014

Abdasa MLA and Congress party’s national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil today issued a statement criticizing the Gujarat government on education and other fronts. Presented below is the full text of his statement:

The State government is exploiting teachers by giving them a paltry sum of Rs. 5300 as fixed wages. Even though the High Court has termed this as exploitation and directed the state government to give full pay to teachers the government has taken the matter to Supreme Court. The HC’s remark that this is not a vibrant state is true and the level of education is deteriorating day by day, alleged Congress MLA from Abdasa Shaktisnh Gohil.

Participating in the discussion on demands of Education, Ports and Civil supplies department in the State Assembly today he said thousands of posts of teachers are vacant in the state. And the state government is wasting lakhs of rupees every year in the name of Shala Praveshotsav.

The government is not filling up innumerable posts of Class -2 inculding principals, continuous education officer and Education Inspector (EI). The government should organize Recruitment progammes to fill up vacancies for teachers and stop all drama of Shala Praveshotsav, he said.

Kutch district has maximum number of vacant posts of teachers and there are many schools in Abdasa, Naktrana and Lakhpat talukas where practically there is no teacher. The government should recruit teachers in primary schools and give 10% credit in recruitment to those who know Kutchi language. This way the language will also be preserved and the schools will get local permanent teachers. The teachers in the state who have not been given benefits of home loan and other benefits as per the sixth pay commission should be given immediately.

Nothing has been done in the state under RTE Act to give education to poor children in the schools and to stop corruption in admissions. By issuing a notification under the RTE act giving relief to those who have commercialized education and in that way promoting corruption in education, the state government has committed a crime.

In engineering colleges and polytechnics in the state 75% posts of principals, 90% posts of professors, 71% posts of assistant professors and 74 % posts of lecturers are vacant. The state has bright students but no teachers and an engineering graduate from the state does not get job anywhere. Today as many as 11305 engineers are registered as unemployed in the state record. This is 4 times than the number in 1995.

Gohil said that Abdasa is quite big and backward area. There is urgent need for government aided colleges and secondary schools in the three talukas of Abdasa. The college at Nakhtrana should be immediately declared grant-in-aid college. Despite having fulfilled all the government criteria it has not been declared granted college whereas several colleges which came up after Naktrana have been declared granted colleges. PTC, CPEd and DPEd teachers who are working since 1998 should be put under surplus category and given protection.

The state has 1663 km long coast which is the longest in the country. And Kutch has longest 352 km i.e. 23% coast. It is of utmost importance that the government should focus on developing small ports in this area. Small ports cannot be ignored at the cost of Kandla and Mundra ports, Gohil added. There is immediate need for developing Malerdi port for fishing. Like in the past machineless boats should be given permission for fishing throughout the year. Instead of harassing fishermen who are living in slums in Jakhau for past 30-40 years by allotting their land to Marine police and BSF the government should give waste government land adjoining the above land to Marine police and BSF.

The government is earning crores of rupees from Alang Ship breaking yard. But ship breaking policy has not been finalized yet which promotes corruption. Plots of Ship breakers are given permission every year which leaves little scope for their proper development. A proposal to develop jetty at Kandla port is pending for years. Though the High Court has ordered to spend a fixed amount from earnings from the port on infrastructure for welfare of labourers but Government is not doing anything.

Genuine poor people are not getting below poverty line (BPL) cards and in the name of finger prints and computerization common man to suffer a lot. Because the server for verification of finger prints on food coupons is down for most of time, poor people do not get ration from shops. Consequently there is fight between shop owners and ration card holders. The government should give adequate commission to the shop owners so that they do not indulge in corruption, he suggested.