RBI Governor visits Kasturba school, hails Bihar govt efforts

JEHANABAD(BIHAR): Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan today visited a model girls school, predominately for weaker section, here and praised Bihar government for the effort.

Accompanied by World Bank officials Rajan visited Kasturba Gandhi Balika school here, around 60 km from state capital Patna, to have a first hand view of the noble educational experiment.

The RBI Governor hailed the project as "very good effort by the Bihar government.

"I feel happy after seeing the school and interacting with the girl students," he said.

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) scheme was launched in July 2004, for setting up residential schools jointly by the Centre and the state at upper primary level for girls belonging predominantly to the SC, ST, OBC and minority communities.

The scheme is being implemented in educationally backward blocks of the country where the female rural literacy is below the national average and gender gap in literacy is above the national average.

World Bank country head Onno Ruhl accompanied the RBI Governor.

During his over an hour stay, Rajan went around the school and talked to girls and teachers. Welcoming him with songs, the girl students showed him their skill in martial art karate and paintings.

Director of Bihar Education project Rahul Singh, who was part of the visiting team, told reporters that the Jehanabad Kasturba school was up to standard eight and housed blind and disabled girls.

There are 535 Kasturba schools across Bihar out of which 231 have hostel facilities at present, he said.

Singh said that there are 96 lakh school students in Bihar out of which 22 lakh are girls. Among these girls, 50,000 are students of Kasturba schools.

Later, the RBI Governor left for famous Buddhist town of Gaya.