Mumbai: The admissions to 25% of reserved seats under the Right to Education (RTE) Act in Maharashtra's schools will begin from Wednesday, March 1.
The centralised process for RTE admissions for the academic year 2023-24 was put on hold due to a lack of clarification on the Aadhar requirement. The state government has now clarified that parents seeking admission for their children in schools under RTE quota will have to furnish their Aadhar, but those without the unique identification will also be admitted, though temporarily.
Under RTE, 25% of Class 1 and Pre-primary seats in private non-minority schools are reserved for children from economically weaker and disadvantaged sections. These students get education free of cost, while the government reimburses their tuition fees to schools. This year, RTE admissions are available for 1 lakh seats in 8,827 schools across the state, including 337 schools in Mumbai, offering 6,569 seats.
Registration process to begin in a few hours
According to the state primary education directorate, the registration process for centralised admission will begin at 3 PM on March 1 and will continue till March 17. The parents can apply to a maximum of 10 schools on the state government's portal https://student.maharashtra.gov.in. The seats will be allotted through a lottery system, while also considering the distance between the applicant's home and the school.
Earlier on February 23, the state education department, in a letter to the director of primary education. had clarified that while the parents who don't have Aadhar for themselves or their children are eligible for admissions, they will have to furnish the document within a stipulated time. Referring to the Supreme Court's 'right to privacy' judgement in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India case of 2012, the state said that the benefits of government schemes can't be denied for the want of Aadhar.
This year, the state has also included the children whose one or both parents died due to Covid-19 between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2022 among the beneficiaries of RTE quota.
