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Municipal school board approves Rs 1,155 crore budget for 2025-26 | Ahmedabad News


Ahmedabad: The Ahmedabad Municipal School Board approved a budget of Rs 1,155 crore for 2025-26 on Tuesday. The administrator’s initial draft budget of Rs 1,143 crore received approval with an additional Rs 12 crore from the school board chairman. The budget encompasses a Rs 25 lakh allocation to train 1,000 students as heritage city guides. The plan also includes the construction of 12 new schools, the addition of 169 rooms across 20 schools, and repairs to 247 rooms in 22 schools.
The 2025-26 budget allocations comprise Rs 25 lakh for student workshops, Rs 6 crore for maths and science facilities and research, Rs 5 crore towards kindergartens, Rs 3 crore for school readiness initiatives, Rs 50 lakh for Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations, Rs 1.75 crore for sports, yoga, and traditional games, Rs 35 lakh for music and art education, and Rs 50 lakh for digital awareness and career guidance.
The municipal school board operates 450 schools where over 1.7 lakh students are enrolled.
The school board administrator, Lagdhir Desai, said, “The budget plans to train 1,000 students as heritage city guides. Additionally, various student-focused initiatives have been included in the budget to ensure holistic development.”
Former school board member Ilyas Qureshi pointed out implementation gaps in the previous year’s budget. He noted a delay in the distribution of uniforms to students in January instead of June despite the allocation of Rs 10 crore.
Qureshi highlighted unfulfilled provisions for first aid kits, toys, school training, bell systems, and children’s savings banks. “The number of schools operated by the school board has reduced from 561 in 2001-02 to 450 currently, despite incorporating 100 schools from newly merged areas,” said Qureshi. He noted an inverse relationship between increasing budgets and declining student and school numbers.





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