Committee says no to funds for wall at SGPGIMS nursery school provisionally handed over to NGO

Hindustan Times

5 hours ago

A committee has rejected the move to spend a proposed ₹48 lakh on carrying out repairs and raising a boundary wall at the three-decade-old nursery school on the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) campus.
The rejection came at a meeting of the recommendatory committee led by additional director Kritika Sharma on Tuesday.
Despite the proposal being turned down, people familiar with the matter claimed minor works like painting and internal repairs have already been carried out, raising concerns about procedural integrity and fund utilisation.
The school has already been provisionally handed over to the Amethi based NGO Rajiv Smriti Shiksha Evam Seva Sansthan, named after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model.
Though the NGO has no known experience in early childhood education, it has been given the green light to begin groundwork for registration, infrastructure, and staffing ahead of the academic session.
The PGI governing body had earlier declined to run the nursery school, citing its unwillingness to spend institutional funds on a non-core activity. Yet, barely weeks after the provisional handover, the administration was ready to invest public resources in upgrading the nursery's infrastructure for the NGO's use, those in the know of things claimed.
'This double standard is hard to ignore,' said an official familiar with the development.
'On one hand, the institute says it doesn't want to fund the school directly. On the other hand, it's dipping into its civil works budget to improve infrastructure for an NGO whose operational role hasn't even been finalized, thanks to the committee which refused to spend money,' an insider said.
Critics are questioning the timing and choice of the NGO, which is based in Amethi and carries the name of a Congress former prime minister, under the BJP-led state government. The organisation's only known credential is a rural postgraduate college, with no documented experience in pre-primary education.
When contacted, SGPGIMS joint director (administration), Jaideep Singh Ghuman confirmed that only interim, provisional approval had been granted.
'The building will continue to be maintained by PGI so that the fees can be kept in check. If the NGO is found underperforming, it will be removed from the project,' Ghuman said.