No takers for Lalu Prasad’s bus scheme in Bihar

PATNA: No schools in Bihar are ready to use buses donated by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president and parliamentarian, Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Former federal railway minister Prasad, who represents Saran in Lok Sabha, had purchased a total of sixty-nine 32-seater buses for 63 academic institutions located in his parliamentary constituency from the Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) fund recently to ferry pupils to their schools.

These buses were bought at a cost of around Rs90million (Dh330.53) with each bus costing Rs1.3 million. But as things stand today, no school in his constituency is willing to accept his free buses citing lack of extra fund to carry out regular maintenance of these vehicles and absence of parking space in the school campus. The students, too, have refused to pay transportation charge.

As a result of which, all the buses purchased by the RJD parliamentarian remain parked in the yard of a local transport agency for the past six months. The school administrations are now asking Prasad to also pay the required money for regular maintenance of buses to enable them put in use. Each Member of Parliament is given Rs20 million every year to develop his/her political constituency and Prasad used this money to buy buses for the schoolchildren who fail to attend classes owing to transportation problems.

The entire story came to light at a meeting which the local Saran district magistrate Kundan Kumar had with the school headteachers on Wednesday. When the district magistrate enquired as to what had prevented them from using these buses for respective schools, the school principals began narrating the hindrances on their way.

Most of the schools sought maintenance money in lieu of using those buses to which the district magistrate announced to convey their grievances to the RJD parliamentarian. At the time of donating buses, however, the RJD had made it clear that it was for the beneficiary institutions to arrange funds for maintenance and servicing of buses.

Prasad had launched the bus scheme for his constituency as a counter to his rival and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s free cycle scheme for the school girls which has turned out to be a huge success, reducing the girls’ dropout rate from 70 per cent in 2007 to now 20 per cent. Such is its success that the London School of Economics’ Ideas for Growth conference early this week has proposed for this scheme to be imitated globally.

A new study conducted by the International Growth Centre too has found a very encouraging result of the cycling scheme. The report brought out in August this year says the “Cycle programme increased the probability of a girl aged 14 or 15 being enrolled in or having completed grade 9 by 30 per cent” and added, “The programme also bridged the pre-existing gender gap in age-appropriate secondary school enrollment between boys and girls by 40 per cent.”

An official report from the state government too said this free cycle scheme had turned out to be a milestone in the field of girls’ education in Bihar.

“The cycle scheme brought about a social revolution and made cycle-riding school girls a veritable mascot of Bihar, especially in the rural areas. The success of the scheme could be gauged from the fact that altogether 961,109 students, including 492,899 girls availed of the scheme in 2012-13,” wrote Bihar chief minister in his blog.