Panjab’s School Education and Health Sectors Hit

Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Indian Parliament on 19 Dec that Panjab saw the highest dropout rate (20.6%) among Class X students in northern states during the 2021-22 academic session. The rate was 9.5% in Jammu and Kashmir, 7.8% in Ladakh, 7.4% in Haryana, 2.5% in Himachal Pradesh and 1.3% in Delhi. Chandigarh recorded zero dropout rate for the four academic years from 2018-19 to 2021-22. Nationally, Odisha reported the highest rate of 49.9%, followed by Bihar at 42.1%. The national average stood at 20.6%, exactly the same as Panjab’s. In the health sector, the Center has denied Panjab a grant of $220M for 100 new clinics and another $49M loan. In early 2023, the AAP government renamed health centers and the SAD government instituted sewa kendras as ‘Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics.’ Sewa kendras were an initiative by the previous government to provide services such as Birth and Death Certificates, Caste Certificates, Marriage Certificates, Aadhaar Card and others in villages. The naming convention is a pun that adds the ruling party’s name to the clinics. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, on 9 Dec, said, ‘We can only give funds to the Panjab government for the implementation of schemes, which are run by the Union government. There are fixed guidelines to run any scheme.’ The Union government had raised strong objections to rebranding with photos of CM Mann being put on the premises.  A state dependent on Center’s funds cannot afford such promotion of a political party at the cost of the health of its citizens.