MAPUSA: Aldona Congress MLA Adv Carlos Alvares Ferreira on Friday slammed the Goa government’s Education Department and the Samgara Shiksha Abhiyan for what he said was a ‘fraud’ circular issued asking schools to gather health data of children in violation of the guidelines laid down by the Union Government.
The circular issued by the Goa Samgara Shiksha Abhiyan for the creation and validation of ABHA IDs sent to schools on August 13th asks schools to provide by August 17th includes details of the children -- height, weight and haemoglobin.
He said that as per the Union government guidelines, the government has to provide a mobile team to go to the schools -- they want to verify for their records, from their labs, about the condition of each child. They are not allowing private pathological labs to submit the reports and submit it online.
“This circular is sent to the schools on August 13th and they expect this to be submitted by Monday. How is this circular to be implemented without the mobile team, and in such haste and to submit the haemoglobin by Monday? On what basis will this data be uploaded by the schools without the mobile clinc and team being available in the school,” he asked
“RBSK was a good move by the Union government to identify deficiencies of children which are from defects at birth to 18 years. This scheme was launched in May 2026. Why was the government of Goa and this Samagra Shiksha sleeping over this? This is part of the education department sleeping over this. They could have started it. By now they could have had much of the data collected,” he said.
“I'm in support of this kind of mission. Deficiencies can be identified at an early stage before they become aggravated. The government needs to relook at this and not make a mockery and force the institutions to collect and upload the data in a manner that is contrary to the very scheme of the central government,” he said.
“Who will pay for this expense? Will the children be given leave from school to start going and queuing up before pathological labs and will they be accepted to be submitted? This is a complete fraud. The manner in which this circular needs to be withdrawn, provided these medical teams at each school collect the data properly,” he demanded.
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