Lok Sabha Question No. 2025 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-03-13
Subject: Students Who lost their lifes/Parents during Corona Pandemic in Maharashtra
Ministry: Education
Asked by: Omprakash Bhupalsinh alias Pawan Rajenimbalkar

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION & LITERACY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.2025 ANSWERED ON 13 th  March, 2023

## Students Who lost their lifes/Parents during Corona Pandemic in Maharashtra

## †2025. SHRI OMPRAKASH BHUPALSINH ALIAS PAWAN RAJENIMBALKAR:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a)  the  details  of  students  whose  parents  lost  their  lives  during  the  Corona  pandemic  in Maharashtra;
- (b) the number of students who died during the Corona pandemic in the State;
- (c)  the  number  of  students  who  lost  their  father/  mother/both  the  parents  during  the  Corona pandemic in the State;
- (d)  whether  the  Government  has  formulated  any  scheme  to  provide  free  education  to  these students under the Right to Education (RTI) Act;
- (e) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor; and
- (f) the number of students who lost their mother/ father/both parents in Osmanabad Constituency and also the number of students received help by the Central Government for their education?

## A N S W E R

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (SMT. ANNPURNA DEVI)

(a) to (f) Education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and majority of the schools are under the domain of respective State  and UT Governments.  However, during the challenging circumstances  of  Covid  pandemic,  the  Ministry  of  Education  made  efforts  to  continue  the education of the students through multiple alternative ways, while ensuring safety and wellbeing of the students.

Samagra Shiksha has been aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in order  to  ensure  inclusive  and  equitable,  quality  and  holistic  school  education.  The  Samagra Shiksha scheme for school education provides financial assistance for implementation of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which provides every child of the age of 6-14 years, the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till the completion of his or her elementary education.

The  Department  of  School  Education  and  Literacy  vide  letter  dated  4th May,  2021 hadshared  a  comprehensive  Covid  Action  plan  with  States/UTs  and  other  stakeholders  for mitigating  the  loss  of  learning. This  Department  had  also  developed  an  online  module  for compiling  the  data  of  Out  of  School  Children  (OOSC)  identified  by  each  State/UT  and  their mapping with Special Training Centres (STC) on the PRABANDH Portal (http://samagrashiksha.in).  The portal requires the concerned State/UT to validate the child wise information of the identified OOSC and STC uploaded by the concerned Block Resource Centre of  the  State  for  monitoring  the  progress  of  mainstreaming  of  OOSC. Also,  Bridge  Course Modules were developed for bridging the learning gaps of Out of School Children studying in Special Training Centres (STC) under the provision of RTE Act, 2009. The number of Out of School enrolled in schools in Maharashtra:

| Year    |   Direct Enrolment |   Mainstreamed |   Total |
|---------|--------------------|----------------|---------|
| 2020-21 |              12669 |          59285 |   71954 |
| 2021-22 |              10415 |          39896 |   50311 |

Furthermore, Hon'ble Prime Minister launched PM CARES for children scheme on 29th May 2021 which aims to support children who have lost both the parents or legal guardian or adoptive  parents  or  surviving  parent  to  COVID-19  pandemic. The  detailed  guidelines  are available in the public domain at https://pmcaresforchildren.in/public/webdesign/images/guidelines.pdf. State/UTs have been directed that all the benefits and entitlements of  Samagra  Shiksha  as  per  existing  norms  may  be  provided  to  children  registered  for  'PM CARES for children scheme' and admitted in schools covered under Samagra Shiksha.

The details for State of Maharashtra is enclosed as Annexure-I.

ANNEXURE-I  REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (a)  TO  (f)  OF  LOK  SABHA UNSTARRED  QUESTION  NO.  2025  FOR  ANSWER  ON  13.03.2023  ASKED  BY  SHRI OMPRAKASH  BHUPALSINH ALIAS PAWAN  RAJENIMBALKAR  REGARDING STUDENTS WHO LOST THEIR LIFES/PARENTS DURING CORONA PANDEMIC IN MAHARASHTRA

The  number  of  Students  who  lost  their  parents  during  corona  pandemic  in  the  State  of Maharashtra is as follows (till August 2021)

| Details                                            |   Aurangabad |   Kolhapur |   Latur |   Amravati |   Mumbai |   Nagpur |   Pune |   Nashik |   Total |
|----------------------------------------------------|--------------|------------|---------|------------|----------|----------|--------|----------|---------|
| The Number of Students who lost lost their parents |         1427 |       6833 |     453 |       2454 |     2822 |     4447 |   5776 |     1469 |   25681 |
| Out of above Number of Boys                        |          714 |       3475 |     221 |       1241 |     1405 |     2224 |   2960 |      785 |   13025 |
| Out of above Number of Girls                       |          713 |       3358 |     232 |       1213 |     1417 |     2223 |   2816 |      684 |   12656 |

The number of students who lost their father /mother /both the parents in Osmanabad constituency is 501.

* As per Government Notification dated 25 th January 2023, Covid affected child (Whose parents either both or single died due to covid infection caused in between 1st April 2020 to 31 st  March 2022)  is  included  in  the  rule  of  the  Maharashtra  Right  of  Children  to  Free  and  Compulsory Education (Manner of admission of Minimum 25% children in Class-I or Pre-school at the entry level for the children belonging to disadvantaged group and weaker section) Rule, 2013.