Even as the Kanya Kelavani enrolment drive came to an end last week,an estimated 80 per cent of the schools in Ahmedabad are yet to receive school bags as part of the kits given under the scheme. Meanwhile,as per the government data,around 24,000 new enrolments have been made in the schools in Ahmedabad city this year during the three days June 25,26 and 27. There are 465 schools run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in the city. The school bags could not be distributed due to lack of time on the day of enrolment,though other items in the kits were distributed. Lagdhir Desai,the administrative officer of the AMC School Education Board said: The overall enrolment in three days of the drive this year has surpassed last years by about 4,000. Though we started late this year,we are expecting to register 30,000 admissions till August. In the last three years,we could do 29 to 30 thousand new enrolments. The Lok Sabha elections reportedly affected the launch of the 10-day teachers training programme and consequently delayed the launch of the Kanya Kelavani Mahotsav and Pravesh Mahotsav that is celebrated each year by the state government. The teachers had anticipated that despite distribution of free uniforms,slates,schoolbags,water bottles and books,the Utsav would not attract many due to the delay. Vice President of the Primary and Secondary School Administrative Staff,Yogesh Mishra,said: The Kanya Kelavani Pravesh Mahotsav drive this year has been a complete failure due to a mismanaged and wrongly timed launch. Eighty percent of the schools have not received the school bags,and many havent received kits after a delayed enrolment drive. The teachers training programme was wrongly timed and ate into the time when the drive should have been launched. So many students turned to private schools due to the delay. The delay in the distribution of kits has been ascribed to the shortage of time for officials to complete the procedure. Desai said,In all,1249 officers from the AMC were deployed to complete the distribution on the days of the drive. On an average,42 minutes were planned to complete the task at each school but since some of the schools had more enrolments than the average,some kits could no be distributed. We will distribute the (remaining) kits later to these students.
