LUCKNOW: After an elaborate survey of the madrasas running across the state to ascertain their legality, infrastructure and flow of funds, the Basic Education Department of Uttar Pradesh has started issuing notices to the unrecognised madrasas running without registration with UP Madrasa Education Board to fall in line or pay a penalty. Initiating the action, the Basic Education Department has issued notices to around a dozen unregistered madrasas operational in Muzaffarnagar district.
Through its notices, the department has levied a penalty of Rs 10,000 per day on unregistered madrasas if they fail to submit relevant documents within three working days of receiving the notice. The notices have been issued by the block education officer of Purkaji and also in the Morna block of the district to over a dozen madrasas operating without proper registration.
According to official statistics, there are over 24,000 madrasas in UP and only 16,000 are registered and recognised, while the rest are deemed to be illegal as they do not have registration with UP Madrasa Education Board.
According to Muzaffarnagar Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) Shubham Shukla, the district minority department informed his office that over 100 madrasas were being run across the district against the norms as they did not have registration or recognition.
Shukla said that there is a provision to slap a fine of Rs 1 lakh if a madrasa did not stop functioning within a month after failing to produce the required documents of registration/affiliation, and thereafter, a fine of Rs 10,000 per day would be slapped.
Taking strong exception to the notice served to madrasas, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, an organisation of Indian Muslims called the education department’s order "unlawful."
The Uttar Pradesh unit of the Muslim body said the madrasas in the state were "harassed" by serving them illegal notices only to "target a particular community" as the madrasas were providing free-of-cost education to the students. The organisation also remarked that these madrasas would not be able to pay the fine of Rs 10,000 per day.
Meanwhile, the UP government has set up a three-member special investigation team (SIT) to probe into the fund flow and other attributes of around 4000 madrasas running along the Indo-Nepal border in around five districts bordering the Himalayan nation. As per the official sources, the state government had received inputs that these madrasas were receiving funds from foreign nations.
