The `School Chale Hum' programme under the SSA has turned out to be one of the most successful endeavours in Bihar with nearly five lakh out-of-school children being brought back to schools under it during the last two years.

In fact, the efforts of Bihar government under the SSA programme, which aims to bring quality elementary education to millions of children, have yielded positive results. Not only has the state been allocated the highest budget, but it has also sent back a record number of children to classrooms.

The success of the programme has now created a need for strengthening the secondary education infrastructure across the country.

Similarly, the proportion of out-of-school girls in the state has also dropped from 20.1 per cent in 2005 to 2.92 per cent in 2009, added BEP sources. What lends further credence to the efforts of the state is that the maximum number of children who have started going back to school are Muslims and SCs. In March 2008, the Muslim child population in Bihar in the age group 6-14 was 33.06 lakh and of them only 2.83 lakh were out of school. The number of out-of-school Muslim children now stands at 1.52 lakh, while 1.57 lakh SC students are yet to attend school.

IndiGo Airlines has formally announced its arrival in Patna. Its services would be launched from July 4, connecting Patna with Mumbai and Bangalore as well as Kolkata, Lucknow and Delhi.The absence of direct air connectivity for Bangalore and Mumbai was causing hardship, undue financial stress and discomfort to Bihari professionals and students who desperately needed this connectivity.

I seriously hope that this flight connectivity will bring much needed relief to many of us who have been paying for double tickets to reach Patna due to lack of single ticket travel option upto Patna. We would end up paying for tickets to Delhi or Kolkata due to lack of a single flight with Patna as end destination.

While the Bangalore flight from Patna would go via Kolkata, that to Mumbai via Lucknow and Delhi. The Patna-Bangalore flight will take off at 6.20 pm and, after hopping at Kolkata, would reach Bangalore at 10.35 pm. The Bangalore-Patna flight will leave Bangalore at 6.50 am to reach Patna at 11.05 am, after hopping at Kolkata.

The Patna-Mumbai flight would leave Patna at 11.35 am and, after hopping at Lucknow and Delhi, would reach Mumbai at 4.50 pm. The Mumbai-Patna flight, on the other hand, would leave Mumbai at 12.20 pm and would reach Patna via Delhi and Lucknow at 5.50 pm.