The Gujarat Congress, the NSUI and youth Congress will carry out a 'rath yatra' of sorts in various parts of the city to create awareness about the Right to Education Act. The yatra is aimed at letting eligible parents (mostly poor) know that their kids are entitled to admissions in private schools for free. Gujarat Congress chief Amit Chavda said that the move was necessitated as the present BJP government was looking to ensure that a minimum number of students get the benefit of the RTE. "It has been the BJP's policy to ensure that the only a few corner the benefits of various schemes. It is hand-in-glove with the private schools to ensure that many children are kept out of RTE. This is our way of ensuring that more and more people come to know of the Act and the benefits available to them under it," said Chavda. The yatra which will be carried out for nine days will cover all the wards of the city and the members will spend at least an hour in each ward explaining people the benefits of RTE. Chavda said if implemented properly, the RTE should benefit 1.7 lakh students in Gujarat. "But the figures for admission under RTE are ridiculously low," said Chavda. The party also plans to hold a gherao programme of various district education offices in the state on April 25 to protest the anomalies in the implementation of reasonable fees by the Fee Regulation Committee. "Before the election, the BJP promised to rein in on the high fees being charged at will by private schools but now that elections are over, the BJP has joined hands with the school mafia to threaten parents and extort high fees from them," said Paresh Dhanani, Leader of Opposition in the state assembly.

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