Government to develop portal to gather information about madrassas across India: Parliamentary panel report

NEW DELHI: The government will develop a portal to gather information about recognised as well as unrecognised madrassas in the country, according to a parliamentary panel report.

The parliamentary standing committee report was tabled in Lok Sabha on Monday. To have a more comprehensive data of madrassas across the country, the Ministry of Minority Affairs told the panel that it has engaged an agency to develop a MIS (Management Information System) portal for the madrassas. “The states/UTs will be requested to upload the information regarding madrassa schools on the said portal and the portal will capture information of such recognised as well as unrecognised institutions,” said the report.

“It is envisaged the data collected from the states/UTs through the portal would facilitate in informed policy making as well as in effective implementation of schemes,” the ministry told the committee. In response, the committee said that it has not been given any date by which the ministry expects to have the said MIS portal. “Hence, the committee desires that MIS portal may be developed urgently in a time bound manner,” it said.

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As per official data, there are 26,928 registered madrassas with about 1.17 lakh teachers and the student enrolment in these institutions is more than 43.52 lakh. The parliamentary panel has flagged that in the absence of detailed information with regard to the madrassas, including available infrastructure, teachers and students, as only 10 states/UTs have entered details on UDISE portal, it would be difficult to implement the New Education Policy in madrassas.

The committee had, accordingly, recommended the ministry to collect the information within three months so that the madrasas are able to avail the facilities under the scheme. The committee recommended that the ministry should issue a direction to all the states/UTs to collect information about recognised or unrecognised madrassas, including their infrastructure, teachers and students in three months so that all the madrassas would get the facilities available under the scheme.

“The committee is of the opinion that unless the ministry has complete information about madrassas, they may find it difficult in implementing the New Education Policy across the madrassas and, as a result, the scheme will suffer from proper assessment of the fund requirement and would deprive students/teachers from the benefits of the scheme,” it said.