Shoe Bhagya rolls out, 48 lakh students to benefit

Bengaluru: Finally the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is fulfilling one of the promises made by the Chief Minister in his budget speech 2015-16. At a cost of Rs 120 crore more than 48 lakh students studying between Std I and Std X will soon be receiving a pair of shoes. The DPI could not implement the scheme following confusion over the sizes of the shoes to be purchased for the students.

According to sources at the DPI, in the next few days all the 48 lakh students will get shoes of their size. The State government has released Rs 120 crores for the same. Another interesting decision taken by the DPI in this regard is that it would not float any centralised tenders to distribute the shoes. Instead the shoes would be purchased locally.

As per the plans the DPI has fixed Rs 225 per pair of shoes and socks for students between Std I and Std V. It will be

Rs 250 for students between Std VI and Std VIII. Rs 275 has been fixed for shoes to be bought for students studying in Std IX and X. The amount required for every school will be released based on the numbers of students studying in each class, through the School Development and Monitoring Committees (SDMCs).

According to this decision, the DDPIs at each district would release money directly to each SDMC through e-banking transfer. All the SDMCs have bank accounts for which the SDMC chairman and the school headmaster would be the joint signatories.

According to sources at the DPI, no timeline has been fixed for the implementation of the Shoe Bhagya Scheme. "But once the details of all the students are collected at district levels, funds will be released," informed an officer from the DPI.

“Supplying 48 lakh shoes at a time is also a big task. Locally shoe sellers cannot arrange that many numbers of shoes easily as no company is in a position to supply such a large quantity. So, we are still working out the modalities,” he said.