Green Park Central School

(Courtesy: Astro Mohan/ URSabhapathi/FB)

Hiriyadka (Udupi), Sep 19: Home Minister Dr V S Acharya said government has decided to grant 25% of initial expenditure or Rs 25 lakh to set up skill development oriented educational ventures.

A student pursuing skill development course will be supported with Rs 6,000 resulting in as many as 2 lakh students as beneficiaries from the programme, he added.

Speaking after laying the foundation stone for Rs 2.5 crore new building of Green Park Central School and PU College here on Sunday, he said government is making sincere efforts to minimize the gap between aided, un-aided and private education institutions in terms of grants The state budgetary allocations for education which was at Rs 4,500 crore about 4 years ago has now increased to huge amount of Rs 10,500 crore. Udupi district excels the parameters in terms of “Sarva Siksha Abhiyan” in the entire state, he added. He promised that the government would make sufficient budgetary allocations in the coming budget for uniforms to the poor students joining Scouts and Guides. Scouts and Guides develop discipline and patriotism among children, he said. ndustrialist G Shankar, ZP President Gladys Almeida, former MLA Sabhapathy and others were present.

31 new police stations

Karnataka Home Minister V S Acharya today said 31 new police stations would be commissioned in various parts of the state during the current year. Speaking after inaugurating the new Home Guards unit here he said 18 police stations have already been set up and the remaining 13 would be opened with in the next two months. In a bid to strengthen the police force in the state, the Home Ministry had also sought transfer of excess funds from other departments for opening up more and more police stations and provide other facilities.

He said it was also planned to recruit 6000 police personnel in next two years time, in two batches of 3000 personnel each. The government was also striving to bring positive changes by providing modern equipments and vehicles. With the increase in the efficiency of the department during the last two years, the police could recover stolen properties to the tune of 65 to 75 per cent. The recovery rate stood at as low as below 25 per cent, he said.

He said the government had also set up a separate Internal Security Division to deal with issues like terrorism and naxalism. Due to the effective steps taken to curb the naxal menace in the four districts of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Chikmagalur and Shimoga, the state of Karnataka was now removed from the list of Naxal affected state by the Centre. The govrnment had also taken all steps to strengthen the coastal security by providing more facilities, he said. (Mangalorean)