Ranchi dist edu dept misses 'shishu panji' survey deadline

Ranchi: District education department has failed to meet the Jan 8 deadline for completing the ‘shishu panji' survey.

The last date to complete the survey, scheduled from Dec 4, 2024, to Jan 4, 2025, was extended to Jan 8. Teachers from govt and govt-aided schools were to gather data on children aged 3 to 18 years, focusing on their enrollment status and identifying any barriers to education, in door-to-door campaign.

An official said, "The current cold weather led to the closure of schools, affecting the drive. The department has urged schools to expedite the work now."

Out of the 6,24,251 students enrolled in the district govt schools, Aadhaar information of 5,22,651 is available . Among these, the Aadhaar cards of 3,44,690 students have been verified. Discrepancies were found in the Aadhaar data of 1,08,309 students as against the records available on the U-Dias portal. The authentication of data for 69,651 students remains unverified by the respective schools.

Schools are required to ‘authenticate' the data on the portal to align the data with the Aadhaar survey. This step was not executed effectively by the schools, leading to concerns over data integrity and accuracy.

Ashish Kumar, a computer programme assistant at district unit of Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC), said, "The 6,24,251 students' enrolment figure is 11,570 less than the previous year's enrolment of 6,35,851 students. Delays in updating data could jeopardise funding and grants to schools for mid-day meals and other resources."