Bihar Education Minister Brishen Patel today promised to provide water bottles and backpacks to all students in government schools in the state.
"We are considering to provide water bottles and backpacks (to carry books) to the students of government schools so that they need not suffer from inferiority complex in comparison to the public school students who go to their schools in proper uniform," he said in the Legislative Assembly while replying to a debate on the education department's budget to the tune of Rs 24,715 crore for 2014-15.
The minister, however, did not give any time frame for providing the backpacks and water bottles to the students of government schools.
Patel said his department was taking a slew of measures to improve quality of education from the primary stage and there was steady improvement in infrastructure and teachers.
The number of schools have gone up to 73,592 schools now as against 52,112 in 2005-06, while the number of teachers too has risen to 4.17 lakh as against 1.46 lakh then, he said, adding that the enrolment of students in primary schools has increased to two crore at present as against 1.4 crore nine years ago.
The minister said the state government was open to the idea of recruiting more teachers in primary schools.
Patel was repeatedly interrupted by the opposition BJP members during his speech to which he got irritated and threatened to vanquish the rivals at the hustings and reduce their numbers to 60 in the next Assembly elections.
The education department's budget was later passed by a voice vote by the members amid a walk out by the BJP members expressing dissatisfaction with the minister's speech.
Earlier, initiating the debate on the education department's budget, senior BJP MLA Rameshwar Chaurasia lamented the lack of adequate infrastructure in Bihar, particularly for higher education, forcing the students to move out to other states.
Compared to high numbers of engineering and medical colleges in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Bihar has fewer such colleges resulting in reduced in-take of students, he said.
