JAIPUR: Private educational institutions in Rajasthan will observe a day's bandh and hold demonstrations in front of Raj Bhavan and the Chief Minister's official residence here on April 28 in protest against the grant policy of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government, which they feel is pushing schools and colleges to permanent closure.

Heads of aided institutions, who met at the Vedic Girls' Postgraduate College here on Sunday, pointed out that the State Government had decided to reduce grants in 2005-06 despite a promise made by Education Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari on January 18 last that the move to introduce 10 per cent cut would be withdrawn.

The general secretary of Swayamsevi Shikshan Sanstha Sangh, Sriram Dangayach, said the orders issued by the Education Department on March 24 had specified that the aided institutions would be given the grants sanctioned in 2004-05. The grant in that year was released after 10 per cent deduction.

Mr. Dangayach said the Education Department's orders would have an undesirable effect of reduction in grants by 10 per cent in every financial year. "This will lead to gradual decline in the grants and the complete phasing out of Government's support in a few years," he added.

The heads of aided institutions alleged that the State Government's decision amounted to a conspiracy to close down private schools and colleges with the aim of facilitating the implementation of its own agenda of education through the chain of schools sympathetic to the ruling party's ideology.

The aided colleges across the State have been facing cut in grants without any notice for the past five years. The colleges -- especially the girls' colleges -- which were getting up to 90 per cent grants, are now forced to function with 40 per cent reduction in grants rendering their functioning next to impossible.

The participants in the meeting pointed out that the State Government had treated the Students' Welfare Fund and funds of the self-financing courses, which were spent on paying salary to the staff as the last resort, as the income of colleges and cited it as the ground for reducing the grants.

The Swayamsevi Shikshan Sanstha Sangh has decided to fight the battle simultaneously on two fronts. Mr. Dangayach said that besides launching a State-wide agitation in protest against the State Government's policy, the Sangh would move a writ petition in the Rajasthan High Court to challenge the latest decision.

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