Yogi's next agenda: Reining in school fee, constructing religious circuits

After fulfilling its poll promise to waive off farm loans of the state’s small and marginal farmers, constituting anti-Romeo squads to keep a check on harassment of women and crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses, the Yogi Adityanath government is all set to bring relief to another significant support base of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — the middle classes.

The Adityanath government is likely to move to put a cap on the fee structures of private schools in the state.

An ordinance, UP schools (regularization of fee collection), is in the works and stakeholders consulted before its placed for the approval of the state cabinet.

Parents have consistently demanded that fee charged by private schools in Uttar Pradesh, particularly in some of its bigger cities of Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Noida and others, be regulated.

Parents have complained how there are significant differences between the fee structure of schools in Delhi, where a law exists to regulate school fee, and the branches of these very schools in Uttar Pradesh, where no such law exists.

The law in the works is likely to specify penal provisions for errant schools, including cancelling of registration of schools. A fee regulating committee, headed by a retired High Court judge, will also be put in place. Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have laws to regulate school fee. (READ MORE)