In 1st three months, HRD minister Javadekar was out on tours for 40 days

New Delhi: With Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar virtually on tour, since he took over office, the crucial task of finalising the national education policy has been hit.

Mr Javadekar has been attending events outside the national capital, for at least 40 days out of his first three months in office, the minister’s travel details accessed by this newspaper reveal.

While the minister was sworn into office on July 5, his first trip outside the city entailed a visit to Kochi on July 9 itself for an interactive session with students of Kendriya Vidyalaya.

The most number of visits of the minister were to his home state of Maharashtra, which he visited six times during his first three months in office. Other states which also got the minister’s major share of attention were Karnataka (five visits), Kerala (four), UP (four) and Telangana (three).

Interestingly, the educationally, socially and economically backward of the North East were only able to get four such visits by the HRD minister during this period of approximately three months; Manipur (September 14 and October 3), Assam (September 19) and Meghalaya (September 20).

The Extremist-affected states of Jammu and Kashmir got one such visit on August 6 for inauguration of IIT Jammu and one such visit to Chhattisgarh on August 7 for inauguration of IIT Bhilai and interaction with tribal students.