BHAKTAPUR: The government has decided to provide financial support of Rs 1,000 to those students who were affected the most by the earthquakes.

The Department of Education will be providing Rs 1,000 each to as many as 461,306 students from 14 districts worst-hit by the quakes for buying uniforms and bags.

The DoE has already committed to making school textbooks available in the affected districts by this week for smooth teaching-learning arrangements in schools in the post-disaster situation.

The Ministry of Finance had recently decided to sanction Rs 460 million to the Ministry of Education as an immediate relief to quake-hit school-going children.

Dev Kumari Guragain, Chief, Planning and Monitoring Division, DoE, said today that the government was going to provide financial support to the students through the families identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs as earthquake victims.

“The budget will be released to the respective district education offices which will in turn allocate the amount to the schools on the basis of the number of affected students,” she said.

Sindhupalchowk, Dhading, Nuwakot, Rasuwa, Okhaldhunga, Gorkha, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Kavre, Dolakha, Ramechhap, Makwanpur and Solukhunbu are the districts worst affected by the quakes, according to MoHA. The government has also issued Earthquake Victim ID Card to the affected families for their identification.

Khagendra Nepal, Spokesperson for DoE, said that the government was also set to release budget to build Transitional Learning Centres in the quake-affected districts across the country.

“The government will provide Rs 430 million to DEOs to construct TLCs in the areas where the school buildings were completely destroyed by the quakes,” he informed.

The government had earlier decided to provide up to Rs 300,000 each to the quake-hit government schools to make temporary arrangements for classes.

As per the commitment, it will give Rs 250,000 each to fully damaged secondary schools, Rs 200,000 each to fully damaged lower secondary schools and Rs 125,000 each to fully damaged primary schools. Guragain said that the damaged schools managed the fund on their own earlier to remove the debris and arrange for classrooms to begin classes from May 31 and now the DoE was going to compensate the schools. “We will release Rs 310 million to the schools as committed earlier so that those who have not yet built TLCs can construct them,” she said.

As of June 10, a total of 49,061 classrooms in 50 districts were fully or partially damaged by the quakes. As many as 2,919 toilets, 1,633 boundary walls, 1,545 water supply systems and some DEO buildings were also damaged. According to data, 479 students and 45 teachers were killed in the disaster.