While the Badal Dal led by Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa is bank­ing on the hu­man­i­tar­ian ac­tiv­i­ties DS­GMC has done dur­ing COVID19-times and the Farm­ers Mor­cha, the Sar­nas-led Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi has re­leased its man­i­festo promis­ing change in gov­er­nance and ed­u­ca­tion pol­icy and with a new thrust for sports and health.  Gurmeet Singh of WSN Delhi Desk re­ports.

THE SHI­RO­MANI AKALI DAL DELHI-LED BY Harvin­der Singh Sarna and Par­mjit Singh Sarna, which has man­aged the DS­GMC prior to 2013, and is con­test­ing the cur­rent 2021 elec­tion with a pre-poll al­liance with Pan­thic Akali Lehar of for­mer provost of Akal Takht Bhai Ran­jit Singh has promised to al­ter the “de­te­ri­o­rated” im­age of DS­GMC by bring­ing in ma­jor re­forms in the gov­er­nance of the au­gust Sikh body, un­in­ter­rupted ed­u­ca­tional re­forms and bring­ing in state-of-the-art health ser­vices for the Sikhs of Delhi if voted to lead the body.

The five-page vi­sion state­ment-cum-man­i­festo re­leased in Eng­lish, Hindi and Pun­jabi has cov­ered the area of Ed­u­ca­tion, Sports, Good Gov­er­nance, Health Ser­vices and Sikh Cul­ture and Tra­di­tion.

In the last decade and pri­mar­ily in the re­cent past, ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions run by the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, es­pe­cially the var­i­ous Guru Harkr­is­han Pub­lic Schools, have seen a qual­i­ta­tive de­cline in ef­fec­tive­ness and ef­fi­ciency when it comes to aca­d­e­mics, fi­nance and ad­min­is­tra­tion. The woes of the ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tions in­creased dur­ing the Covid19 lock­down and have caused ex­treme stress to teach­ers, stu­dents and par­ents of the chil­dren study­ing in these DS­GMC-run schools.

The DS­GMC has re­ceived a lot of flak on so­cial me­dia last year for its han­dling of var­i­ous ad­min­is­tra­tive, fi­nan­cial and ed­u­ca­tional pol­icy is­sues. So­cial me­dia ac­tivists have taken the Badal Dal to task for the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing trend. It is ironic that while the Badal Dal and es­pe­cially the Pres­i­dent of DS­GMC was en­gaged in push­ing new pro­jects and go­ing all out to pub­li­cise them, the var­i­ous pend­ing is­sues, es­pe­cially in the field of ed­u­ca­tion were left vir­tu­ally un­touched. There was a to­tal dis­dain for sub­stan­tive is­sues.

The pol­icy state­ment of the Sarna broth­ers -Harvin­der Singh Sarna and Paramjit Singh-led Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi as­sumes sig­nif­i­cance as it con­cen­trates on re­vamp­ing the ed­u­ca­tion struc­ture of the in­sti­tu­tions run by the DS­GMC. Pledg­ing an over­haul of schools run by the body, the man­i­festo high­lights de­ter­mi­na­tion to im­prove the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem with the in­tro­duc­tion of mod­ern tools and tech­nol­ogy, the in­tro­duc­tion of the study of for­eign lan­guages, courses from Cam­bridge and job-ori­ented skill de­vel­op­ment.

The Sarna group has also promised the moon to the poor­est of poor Sik­li­gar Sikhs by as­sur­ing them jobs in for­eign lands af­ter train­ing them in var­i­ous skill-sets re­quired in west­ern coun­tries.

The Sikhs of Delhi are ea­gerly watch­ing to see which party fo­cuses on Ed­u­ca­tion and Good Gov­er­nance.

For the first time in many years, a group con­test­ing DS­GMC elec­tions has com­mit­ted that in its en­deav­our of good gov­er­nance in schools, there will be no in­ter­fer­ence of politi­cians and vested in­ter­ests. All dues to teach­ers and other staff will be paid on time and in­no­v­a­tive re­tire­ment ben­e­fit plans will be pre­pared for all sec­tions of em­ploy­ees of the DS­GMC.

The party has also pro­posed to start a decadal plan to bring out the sport­ing tal­ent of Sikh stu­dents and Delhi.

Poor and mid­dle-class Sikhs have al­ways rued the fact that there is no sub­sidised health sys­tem by the DS­GMC. The Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi has pro­posed the com­ple­tion of a world-class 550-bed Bala Sahib Hos­pi­tal. They have also talked about an­nual health in­sur­ance of Ru­pees 10,000 to poor Sikh fam­i­lies.

As the 400th birth cen­te­nary of the Ninth Mas­ter falls in the first week, soon af­ter the re­sults of the cur­rent DS­GMC elec­tions sched­uled for 25 April, the Sarna group has an­nounced to make the year 2021 a his­toric year to cel­e­brate the 400th birth an­niver­sary of Guru Teg Ba­hadur Sahib, with un­for­get­table events, and pro­grammes spread out through­out the year.

The pol­icy state­ment of the Sarna broth­ers -Harvin­der Singh Sarna and Paramjit Singh-led Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi as­sumes sig­nif­i­cance as it con­cen­trates on re­vamp­ing the ed­u­ca­tion struc­ture of the in­sti­tu­tions run by the DS­GMC. 

The Sikhs of Delhi are ea­gerly watch­ing to see which party fo­cuses on Ed­u­ca­tion and Good Gov­er­nance and for the mo­ment at least the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi has taken a lead with their an­nounce­ment. Speak­ing to the me­dia while re­leas­ing the doc­u­ment, party leader Harvin­der Singh Sarna, who is also a can­di­date from the Pun­jabi Bagh con­stituency against Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa high­lighted the anom­alies in DS­GMC un­der the Badal Dal over the last eight years. He pointed out that while the schools and other bod­ies were in sur­plus in 2013, presently they do not have funds to pay salaries on time.

The proof of the pud­ding lies in its eat­ing. Sikhs of Delhi hope that Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi will ho­n­our its pub­lic com­mit­ment as made out in their man­i­festo.