KHONSA, 4 Nov: Chief Minister Pema Khandu has assured to provide government support in the form of grant-in-aid to meet the salary gap of the teachers working at the Sarada Mission Girls’ School (SMGS) here in Tirap district.
Attending the golden jubilee celebration of the school on Saturday, Khandu appealed to the Ramakrishna Sarada Mission authorities to upgrade the school to the higher secondary level, and gave assurance that “all infrastructure needed for the upgradation will be taken care of by the state government.”
“We are celebrating 50 years of the school. It is the right time for the school to upgrade to higher secondary,” he said.
Khandu, on behalf of the people, expressed gratitude to the pioneers of the mission who had ventured into the state to spread education when basic facilities, particularly communication, were a distant dream in the state.
“My respect and gratitude to the first batch of matajis, teachers and staff of the school, who faced all hardships with a smile just to educate our girls and boys. Today, students of this school are serving the state and the country in various capacities,” he said.
Khandu also put on record his gratitude to KAA Raja, the then administrative head of Arunachal, for having convinced the RK Sarada Mission to open a school in Khonsa.
The CM also expressed gratitude to the chiefs of Namsang and Borduria “for supporting the cause of education and donating 30.88 acres of land for establishment of the school.”
He said that “their foresight has benefited hundreds of children to become successful in their lives by receiving quality foundation studying in the school.”
Emphasising that schools play a pivotal role in imparting education to children and ensuring their all-round development, Khandu said that the state government is committed to extending every possible support to all organisations like RKSM engaged in providing quality education to the children of Arunachal.
He observed that “the people of central and eastern Arunachal were lucky to get Ramakrishna Mission (Aalo in West Siang and Deomali in Tirap) and Sarada Mission (Khonsa) as early as in the ’70s.
“These schools have impacted the education of children of central and eastern Arunacha, which can be vouched for by the large number of officers from the two zones in government departments,” he added.
“Not to deny the quality education offered by Ramakrishna Mission and Sarada Mission to children of western Arunachal, we approached the mission headquarters and today we have a Sarada Mission Girls’ School in Dirang (West Kameng) and a Ramakrishna Mission School in Lumdung (East Kameng),” Khandu said.
Requesting the mission authorities to support the state government in rolling out the national education policy in toto in all Ramakrishna Mission and Sarada Mission schools in the state, he said that “the revolutionary policy has to be rolled out in toto across the state by 2030, for which the state government has prepared a roadmap. and a task force is in work.”
The celebration was attended also by Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein, Education Minister Taba Tedir, PHED Minister Wangki Lowang, RWD Minister Honchun Ngandam, Deputy Speaker Tesam Pongte, local MLA and chief of Borduria Wangling Lowangdong, Ramakrishna Sarada Mission secretary Pravrajika Anilprana, DGP Anand Mohan, Education Commissioner Ankur Garg, and others.
More than 200 former students also attended the celebration.
On the same day, the CM and his cabinet colleagues inaugurated two projects of the Tirap police.
The projects are Phase-1 of ‘Tirap Netra’ (IP-based CCTV surveillance system of Tirap district) with 57 cameras, including eight automatic number plate reader (ANPR) cameras, and the Netra control room for integrated monitoring of CCTVs at the SP office.
In Phase-2, the project will cover check gates and other town habitations, such as Deomali and Lazu.
They also flagged off the first drug rehabilitation batch of 15 individuals of Tirap, sponsored by the PGCIL under its CSR scheme.
This is part of Project Pratighaat initiative of the district police, which is a women-led transformation of Tirap into a drug-free district.
Project Pratighaat involves door-to-door counseling by a team of local women volunteers, police team and subject experts, and continuous surveillance by the community. (CM’s PR Cell)
