How often we have seen children trudging to their school with heavy school bags on their back. Now, children of Rajasthan can hope to carry lighter bags to school as the Rajasthan Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasara on Wednesday initiated a state-wide pilot project with the aim of reducing the weight of children's school bags.

Measures To Decrease The Weight

The minister while addressing a gathering at a government school asserted that it would take steps to lighten the weight of school bags so that children won’t be burdened to carry heavy bags. Some measures to realize this aim include carrying one book instead of several ones of the same subject. The textbooks’ weight will also be reduced to two-thirds. Dostara said that the old books of students of class 1 weighed900 grams which has now been brought down to 400 gm. Similarly, the weight of books of class I to V has been reduced from almost 6 kg to just over 2 kg.

Implementation

Dostara said that Rajasthan is the first state in the country to take up this initiative to reduce the burden of students. He further said that this project will first be carried on an experimental basis by selecting one school each in 33 districts of the state. The outcome of this project will be subject to constant reviews and if the result is positive, then the project will be implemented in the entire state for all classes from one to 12.

This is an excellent initiative launched by the Rajasthan government which should also be taken up by private schools and all schools of other states so that it would ease the burden of school children.