The National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA), has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ and sought relief for private schools. In this letter NISA has urged government and concerned ministries, not to issue any orders pertaining to school fee waiver for the next three months. It also demands for immediate release of reimbursement amount of EWS students pending for many years.
The alliance has further demanded exemptions from school bus EMI, road tax, school bus tax, EPF, ESI, property tax, electricity and water bill payments.
Kulbhushan Sharma, President; NISA, said in the letter that due to the outbreak of Corona epidemic in the country, an economic crisis has arisen in front of private schools, especially budget schools. He informed that there are more than 5 lakh private schools in the country, which are providing quality education to crores of poor students. The livelihood of more than 2 crore teaching and non-teaching staff is depended on these schools. He further said that some organizations have started demanding school fee waiver under their vested interests. Schools are already facing challenges towards providing salary etc. to their employees. NISA president said that except for some large and elite schools, other schools do not have additional savings. If government issues order to waive school fees, then there will be an existential crisis in front of budget schools. Kulbhushan Sharma demanded government to declare a new academic session, reducing numbers of holidays for the upcoming session so that classes can run smoothly for 220 days. Instead of waiving fee, government can help poor and needy parents by putting an equal amount of school fees in their bank accounts under DBT.
