File picture of chief minister Naveen Patnaik interracting with government school students

Bhubaneswar, June 21: The state government has decided to provide free uniforms to boy students in classes I to VIII in all government schools from this academic session. This scheme will be applicable to students in three categories only — below poverty line (BPL), scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST). The move is aimed to improve the attendance and check the dropout rates in schools.

School and mass education (SME) minister, Pratap Jena, said that earlier the government used to provide free uniforms only for girl students and the SME department is still working out the logistics such as cost and quality of the uniforms. “We are trying to include all boy students under this scheme, irrespective of their background, even though there is no such guideline for students belonging to above poverty line category,” Jena said.

Under this scheme, around 54 lakh students, both boys and girls, in 51,150 government schools across the state would be benefited, SME officials said. The state has received a grant of Rs 400 crore from the Right To Education-Sarva Sikhshya Abhiyan (RTE-SSA) for this purpose. A sum of Rs 700 is said to be spent for two sets of uniforms for each student.

“There are certain queries which are under consideration now. We would finalize the budget in a day or two,” said Aparajita Sarangi, secretary of SME department.

Further, a joint account would be opened in the name of the principal and managing committee of each school. The government would deposit the money in these accounts for the requisite uniforms in each school. “At present, the state government provides one set of school uniform to girls (of all categories) in government-run schools,” said a senior official of SME department. In 2009-10, 27,18,830 girl students from Class I to VII were given school uniforms free of cost.

The colour combination has also beepn finalized. Boy students would wear deep blue pant and white half shirt. Girl students from class I to V will get sky blue frocks while those in class VI, VII and VIII would be provided deep blue kurtis, white salwars and white dupattas, Sarangi said. Chief minister, Naveen Patnaik had approved the colour code.

“So far, it has not been finalized whether we would provide shoes and ties to the students or not. We are reworking the proposal,” Sarangi said.