Delhi's AAP government spent Rs 52.52 core to give benefits of Rs 30 crore under Business Blasters programme: Sources

New Delhi [India], December 3 (ANI): AAP government spent Rs 52.52 crore to give away financial benefits worth only Rs 30 crore under the much-hyped 'Business Blaster' programme, sources said and noted that the scheme entailed giving seed grant of only Rs 2000 per student for building and executing an entrepreneurial idea.
Delhi government sources said many schools returned Rs 26 crore out of Rs 56 crore given to them.
The sources said, "this is another classic case of the Kejriwal government using education projects for funding its publicity campaigns".
They said that according to an internal report of the Kejriwal government on the Entrepreneurial Mindset Curriculum (EMC), which was rolled out for classes 9 to 12 with an aim to promote entrepreneurship among students, the project was allocated Rs 60 crore for 2021-2022.
"Even out of this meagre allocation only Rs 56.14 crore were disbursed to the school for giving seed grant of Rs 2000 per student for rolling out his or her business idea. However, exhibiting a total lack of appetite as well as capacity to implement the programme, leave apart from benefitting from it, many schools returned Rs 26 crore out of the total 56 crores given to them. How and what can a sum of Rs 2000 do to help a student achieve an entrepreneurial mindset," a source said.
The report also brought out that the Delhi government spent Rs 52.52 crore on advertisements for the disbursement of this scheme, the sources said.
They added that Rs 28.79 crore were spent on telecasting eight episodes "featuring only 24 teams by AAP government on various TV channels during just two months from November 2021 to January 2022".
"This precisely means that the government spent a whopping Rs. 11,996,666.00 (One crore nineteen lakh ninety-six thousand and six hundred sixty-six rupees) on a single team for publicizing it on electronic media only," the source said.
Sources said the report goes on to explain that the Directorate of Information and Publicity "spent an additional amount of Rs. 23.73 crores on print media, TVC promo, radio, outdoor and digital channels".
"It mocks the basic reasonability to justify spending Rs 52.52 crore in the name of publicizing a project which is actually giving merely Rs 2000 per student for building and executing an entrepreneurial idea... It is a characteristic style of projecting hyped achievements where none exist," the source said.
The sources said the internal note explains nothing about the actual input and process applied for inculcating an Entrepreneurship Mindset under EMC.
They said it mentions nothing about any expert engagement, entrepreneurship lab or incubation centre at school level being developed, "there is absolutely no information about sector or subject of entrepreneurial ideas generated by students or any real impact of the project and the report writes only a few lines each on objectives of curriculum content and disbursement of Rs 2000 per student". (ANI)