Urban News

The Hindu 06.11.2009

Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore to get special focus in SSA budget

Shastry V. Mallady

MADURAI: A separate focus will be given to Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore cities in next year’s budget of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA).

The plan will give thrust to effective implementation of SSA (Education for All) initiatives in the three ‘Million Plus cities,’ R. Venkatesan, State Project Director, SSA, announced here on Thursday.

“This will be our commitment from next year. There will be separate allocation in the budget and a thorough planning for the Million Plus cities for 2010-11 has been initiated,” he said. The total allocation for SSA in the State for the current year is Rs.862 crore.

Mr. Venkatesan was making a presentation at the inaugural session of third national workshop-cum-review meeting of urban planning for the Million Plus cities in the country, organised by the Department of Elementary Education and Literacy, Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.

A major step taken recently by the SSA in Tamil Nadu was to set up ‘urban cells’ at State and district levels.

The State Project Director gave an overall view of the quality initiatives taken under ‘Tamil Nadu State Mission of Education for All,’ particularly in the context of school dropout rate, interventions for out-of-school children, urban deprived children, street children, migrant population, bridge courses and child-centred learning methodologies implemented in schools.

“Dropout rate at primary level is only 1.23 per cent and it was 1.9 per cent in upper primary level as per 2007-08 data. Children not attending school are being identified by the SSA staff to put them in schools. Education volunteers are posted for providing education to 314 children staying in juvenile homes in eight districts,” Mr. Venkatesan said.

According to SSA officials here, representatives from over 30 cities in the country are participating in the urban planning meet.

‘Million Plus’ cities

Some of the cities are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore, Lucknow, Jaipur, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Patna, Amritsar, Allahabad, Meerut, Kanpur, Surat, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Asansol, Surat, Coimbatore and Madurai.

The Hindu 04.11.2009

Sanitary napkin vending machines planned at schools

Special Correspondent

Photo: M. Periasamy

FOR HYGIENE: A girl student demonstrates the functioning of a sanitary napkin vending machine installed at the S.R.P. Ammaniammal School of the Coimbatore Corporation in the city on Tuesday. –

COIMBATORE: All 20 girls’ schools of the Coimbatore Corporation will have machines that will vend sanitary napkins, Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra said on Tuesday after a vending unit was commissioned at the civic body’s S.R.P. Ammaniammal School at R.S. Puram.

Costing Rs. 30,000, each machine would have a vending unit and an incinerator for used napkins, he said. The objective of installing these machines in the schools was to ensure hygiene and prevent absenteeism. Rooms for girls to take rest would also be constructed in all the schools, he said.

At present, three Re. 1 coins would have to be inserted into the machine to obtain one napkin. As the Corporation wanted to provide the napkins free of cost, it had now requested the vendor agency to provide tokens whose weight and shape were absolutely similar to that of the coin.

The tokens would be provided to the heads of the institutions. Students could obtain these from them, the Commissioner said.

Apart from the Commissioner, Mayor R. Venkatachalam, Deputy Mayor N. Karthik, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Coimbatore Range, B. Balanagadevi and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime and Traffic), Coimbatore City, N. Kamini were present during the commissioning of the machine.

The napkin vending machine was one of the measures initiated by the Corporation to improve hygiene in its schools. It had also embarked upon improving the sanitary conditions in the institutions and this included a specific focus on the condition of the toilets.

The Corporation was teaching personal hygiene to students of primary schools. Slide shows on bacteria and viruses were being organised to point out to the students the risk from unhealthy practices such as open defecation and urination.