Do you want to make any of your near or dear ones immortal? Welcome to Madhya Pradesh. The only condition is that you must have a deep pocket.
The state education department has launched a novel scheme to attract finance for the fund-starved government schools. The government is ready to name its schools after individuals — dead or alive — in return for a stipulated donation.
The amount is Rs 45 lakh for a higher secondary school, Rs 36 lakh for a middle school and Rs 10 lakh for a primary school.
Police verification
The only condition is that the person in whose name the school is proposed to be named should not have or have had a criminal background.
Police verification will be mandatory in all cases. Applications have to submitted to the school education department through the district education officer.
Two proposals
The government has already received at least two proposals. A prosperous agriculturist family of the Jaura tehsil of Morena district has offered to pay Rs 50 lakh for naming the government higher secondary school in their village as Pandit Ramratan Chaudhary School after the patriarch of the family.
In addition, a teacher in Narsinhgpur district has agreed to pay Rs 10 lakh for naming a school after her deceased husband. Both the proposals are likely to be cleared by the education department soon.
