MGNREGA to help build playgrounds in schools

JAIPUR: State education department is all set to make a complete overhaul in promoting sports in government schools. The department has collaborated with MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) for building grounds in all model schools that are spread on acres of land. The move is targeted to have high number of participation of Rajasthan domiciles in Olympics, Commonwealth games and other international events.
Department of Rural Development and Pranchayati Raj have been roped in for the purpose of streamlining MGNREGA calendar. They were asked to include the construction of boundary wall/fencing and levelling of school grounds in the calendar. "The target is to have at least one school in all 9,998 gram panchayats which could offer basic sports facilities to our students. The direction has been passed to sarpanchs, gram panchayats and zila pramuks for identifying schools for the said purpose," said state education minister Vasudev Devnani.
MGNREGA rules say that distribution of funds for a specific work should be spent in a format of 60% on labourers and 40% on material. It is certain that the education department also has to contribute funds for construction of boundary walls which will require more than 40% of construction material. The construction work will be limited to levelling grounds with no pucca ground which is required for sports like tennis and basketball. Sports which will be possible on the kuchha surface are cricket, volleyball, kabbaddi and football. Rajasthan has 72,990 schools with only 28,935 schools having playgrounds as per state government status report 2015-16.
The department is hoping that if the experiment works, it would open way for developing infrastructure in schools.