Rajya Sabha adjourned twice on UP issue

New Delhi, Nov 27: The Rajya Sabha was adjourned for 25 minutes during Question Hour today on the reported issue of imposition of President's rule in Uttar Pradesh.

As soon as the House assembled at 1100 hrs for the day, Samajwadi Party members were on their feet, protesting against the reported move by the Centre.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has been quoted as saying that State Governor T V Rajeshwar had sent a report to the Centre, recommending President's rule in the state. The Centre has, however, denied such a move.

Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, after having failed to pacify the members, adjourned the House for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, the House functioned normally and the Question Hour was taken up. However, after two questions, the issue was again raised by the SP, leading to the Upper House being adjourned for 10 minutes.

Earlier, replying to a question on shortage of teachers in the country, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh admitted to the shortage of qualified teachers and said the government was taking steps to rectify the wrong.

Minister of State M A A Fatimi said the data compiled by the NIEPA indicated a pupil/teacher ratio of 1:41 for the primary level and 1:35 for the upper primary level against a national norm of 1:40.

He said the Centre had sanctioned 86,516 posts and 54,620 remain vacant.

Replying to a question by Congress' Rajeev Shukla, on the drop out rate of girl students, Minister of Human Resource Development Arjun Singh said that this issue had been mentioned in the National Common Minimum Programme of the UPA Government. The Centre alone cannot do anything unless the States also come out as equal partners in this initiative, he said.

The Minister also said that to attract the girl students for education, a scheme is being formulated under which a sum of Rs 3000 will be deposited in the name of the girl student till she turns 18.

BJP's Sushma Swaraj said that basic cause of girl drop-out from the schools was lack of toilets even in girl schools and in co-education schools, they were finding the same problems. Separate toilets should be made for them in co-education schools, she said.

Minister of State of HRD Ms D Purandeswari informed that 33 per cent of the allocation is for infrastructure and toilets get priority under the total sanitation scheme in the schools.

UNI