Meerut: The government’s ambitious initiative of training all state government schoolgirls in self-defence may go down in the cold storage due to dearth of physical trainers.The state administration has received only four applications, against the 100 vacancies, for teaching judo, karate and taekwondo to government school girls, leaving not much choices in front of the government.Harinder Sharma, Meerut district coordinator (construction), who is officiating as district coordinator (education), said, “The order of appointing judo trainers for the students came in October. After that, we let out various ads, however, we did not get enough applications. Against the available 100 vacancies in the district, we have got just four applications. We need one trainer over one nyay panchayat but currently this seems like a difficult job.”The Uttar Pradesh government decided to train lakhs of girls studying in over 45,000 junior high schools across the state in judo, karate and taekwondo, in October. They were also supposed to learn how to wield batons and ‘lathis’ in the training for which the government was to hire professionals.Asked about the reason behind a low turnout of applications, the education department authorities said on condition of anonymity, “The teachers are being offered Rs 3,000 for a month – for the training which will be conducted for three months. Which certified sports trainer will agree to join at such a low salary?”In the ambitious project, all the girls starting from Class VI to VIII were to be trained in the martial arts and use of batons. There are about 45,625 junior high schools being run by the state government.

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