Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said that his government would consider reopening of de-notified institutions on the basis of need and after a review.

After the Opposition’s uproar in the legislative assembly on Wednesday at Tapovan at Dharamshala, Sukhu said that the budget and staff would be arranged first for such institutions.

Subsequently, they will be opened as per the need, he added.

Sukhu said that the previous government opened more than 900 institutions in the last nine months of its tenure. Of these, 386 are schools, and 584 are other institutions.  He said that these institutions were opened without a budget while Rs 5,000 crore is required to run them.

The Chief Minister, while taking a dig at his predecessor, asked what divine powers came to former CM Jai Ram Thakur that after four years in office, he simultaneously opened more than 900 institutions.

He said that the previous government opened such Community Health Centres, where only the compounder was posted, while high schools were opened only with the help of peons.

Taking a jibe, he said that in fact, the previous government opened all these institutions to run them with the help of God.

Despite opening more than 900 institutions, the public made the BJP to sit in the opposition, he quipped.

Sukhu said that the government would not let even a single child be deprived of education and wherever there was a need, a school would be opened for even a single child.

He alleged that the previous government opened schools without teachers just before the elections, these included 130 senior secondary schools, where science classes have been started, but there is no teacher.

The CM said that his government would make full disclosure of the institutions opened by the previous government without budget provision and without staff in the Governor’s address.

Congress had not come for power, but to change the system, he claimed.

He pointed out that never ever during the tenure of five former CMs of the state, such a number of institutions were opened in the last year of their government.