Income-tax department starts school for slum kids

After showing the city a unique way to spread greenery through the concept of the green vertical wall, the income-tax department on Thursday started another mission under which it would give the power of knowledge to the under-privileged kids.

The initiative called ‘Slum to Scholar’ took off with principal chief commissioner (North West Region) Binay K Jha, who is the brainchild behind this initiative, inaugurating the first school named as ‘Vijeta’ at a park located in the Income Tax Colony, Rishi Nagar.

Under the initiative, the I-T aims to cover 35,000 such kids.

The department, in association with NGO Noble Foundation and a corporate house, distributed school bags and kits among kids who joined the school on the first day. Jha said, “Today we started ‘Vijeta’, the first school, under S2S project which has been temporarily set up in the park of Income Tax Colony. Soon we will try to relocate this to a proper building. As a matter of fact, the department with the help of an NGO, traced 54 children in Rishi Valmiki Nagar slum who did not go to schools.”

 “As a special feature, the school will be run entirely on contributions from the employees of the income-tax department. Also, Bed-qualified teacher Kashmira Devi, who has volunteered to teach the kids is the wife of one of the department employees. The families of the income-tax officials living in Rishi Nagar Colony will assist in running the school, which will have its own room soon,” he added.

A bathroom has been specially set up for the use of children. “By opening this school, the department just wanted to spread the message that we are not only the collectors of tax but also responsive to the social and natural environment around us,” Jha said.

He said, “The school is a manifestation of the added dimension of the department, ITSR (income tax social responsibility). We have already taken initiatives of cleaning the environment through the green plastic initiative and facilitating communications of schoolchildren with the armed forces staying on the borders.”

“Under the S2S scheme, the department is seeking the participation of students from the leading schools of Ludhiana in supporting children of industrial workers and help them get education and attain self-reliance and even become future taxpayers,” the official said