By IANS,
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Monday reiterated her demand that the central government fund the cost of implementing the Right to Education Act in her state.
Conveying her stand on the issue, state Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told a press conference here: “The chief minister’s expression of the state government’s inability to bear the financial burden arising on account of the implementation of the new act has been misconstrued, misunderstood and misinterpreted.”
Without taking names of her critics, including that of union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal who had made certain scathing remarks against her on the issue, Singh sought to emphatically point out: “The question of ensuring education for all was extremely close to the UP chief minister’s heart and she has been extremely concerned about it from day one. All that she had sought was to make the union government understand it was not pragmatic on their part to expect the states to bear the financial burden arising on that account.”
He said: “The UP chief minister never refused to implement the new act. All that she had sought was additional financial support.”
Singh said: “Through her letter dated April 3, to the prime minister, she simply sought to reiterate what she had done earlier through a similar letter dated Oct 26, 2009 – seeking entire funding of the burden by the union government.”
According to him, it was not just Mayawati who had raised the issue before the centre, similar letters were sent by West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka and Bihar governments, seeking additional financial support for executing the RTE Act.
Singh added: “The UP chief minister has expressed her deep displeasure over the confusion that was being spread by her political adversaries only with a view to maligning her image.”
“In fact, the UP CM has always given due importance to the issue of education, for which her government has remained committed; and finds it unfortunate that people occupying key positions at the centre were trying to make the all important issue utterly trivial.”
He went on to add: “It was solely on account of her deep concern for education that shortly after assuming power for the fourth time in May 2007, she ordered recruitment of as many as 88,000 teachers to fill the long pending vacancies of teachers in government run educational institutions.” As many as 66,000 new teachers had already been appointed so far, he informed.
He said: “The chief minister is also upset over her opponents’ bid to run her down for allocating funds for building memorials, parks and monuments dedicated to various Dalit icons.”
While declining to say what the state would do in case the centre continued to ignore its demand, the cabinet secretary added: “We are hopeful that the centre would remain pragmatic and refrain from under-rating the significance of the issue by ignoring the issues raised by so many states.”