BMC education budget: Safety of students, quality the defence

Fiscal 2013-14, for the first time, the emphasis will be on providing self-defence training to girl students.

“Keeping in mind the rising crime against women, we have decided to empower girl students. We will organise judo-karate and rifle and gun shooting training camps with funds from the women and child welfare committee and private and public companies,” said Mohan Adtani, additional municipal commissioner.

BMC will also launch a scheme under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and RTE Act for street children. Four schools with hostels will be established. A provision of Rs 60 lakh has been made and posts of a warden and two teachers for each school sanctioned.

The focus will also be on improving the quality of education by extending virtual classrooms and the school excellence programme, besides upgrading and repairing school buildings.

To run the virtual classroom project effectively in 480 schools, BMC has made a provision Rs 6.5 crore for secondary and Rs 20 crore for primary. In the current fiscal, the project was extended to 400 schools — 40 secondary and 360 primary.

The civic body has proposed Rs 262.23 crore for repairs and upgrade of school buildings as against Rs 367 crore during 2012-13. BMC owns 452 school buildings. Of these, 103 do not need repairs and 179 have been repaired.

Milk continues to flow

While over 10 incidents have been

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