Rukmapur institute to make way for army school

Karimnagar: In a first of its kind initiative, a social welfare residential school will be set up to impart training to students to enter the armed forces. The first batch comprising 160 students, with 80 students each at two entry levels of Class V and Intermediate, will commence from the academic year 2018-19.

The Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society authorities have chosen Rukmapur school of Choppadandi mandal for the purpose. In this regard, the State government has also issued a GO to convert Rukmapur residential school into Telangana State Welfare Residential Sainik School.

Senior IPS officer and Chairman of TSWREIS RS Praveen Kumar, who attracted the attention of the entire nation by sending TSWREIS student Poorna to Mount Everest, is the brain behind the sainik school.

Poorna is the youngest girl in the world to scale Mount Everest. It is learnt that in the past two years, Praveen Kumar has been preparing and training students with the help of retired Army personnel to enter the armed forces, but his efforts went in vain.

It was then that he decided to start a sainik school to impart full-fledged training to students under the State government’s flagship programme of KG to PG free education.

Government has also agreed to recruit the required staff and purchase infrastructure. Administrative officer (colonel cadre), band faculty, physical instructor, NCC and athletic coaches will be recruited.

The fund for maintaining proper diet for students, appointing barber and dhobi has also been enhanced. The government will be spending Rs 50 on each student to provide special diet to strengthen them physically. Annually, Rs 1 lakh will be allocated to purchase sports material, band material worth Rs 1 lakh, ten cycles at a cost of Rs 5,000, a gym and model of aeroplane and ship will also be set up. A swimming pool, indoor stadium, three kabaddi courts and a 400-metre standard athletic track will also be developed.

The reason behind selecting Rukmapur school for the sainik school is that it has enough space to hold all the activities.

The school already has sufficient infrastructure including buildings, residential quarters and dormitory.Speaking to Telangana Today, Lingaiah, principal of the school, said 80 students each in Class V and Intermediate will be selected by conducting special entrance examination.

Besides infrastructure, a sainik school requires more space which the school has, he said, adding that there was also a new building where there was scope for running two junior colleges at a time.Recently, the foundation stone for approach road to the school was also laid.