As per the Right to Education (RTE), all children of 6 to 14 age group in India must get free and compulsory education. Being not able to meet the requirements, Government allowed Non Government Organizations to start schools for standard 5^th to 10^th. Some of the schools were offered grants to bear part of cost while many of the schools remained un-aided by the government due to shortage of funds. Some of the financial support that Aided schools get from the Government; which the un-aided schools don’t, include: Books for all students, stationary, lab consumables etc, Salary of teachers & supporting staff, Mid-day meal for all the students, General maintenance cost such as water, power etc.

Solapur district alone has 160 such un-aided schools. Our endeavor has been to support these schools to upgrade their facilities and quality of education so as to bring them at par with the aided schools in the state. Finally, to appeal to the government to include these schools in their list of aided schools so that they are self-sustaining.

As a part of this drive, Prabhakar Foundation in association with Book-A-Gift; founded by young Anay Gawande and his sister Renuka and Maharashtra Rajya Shala Kriti Samiti undertook a drive to provide curriculum textbooks to about 10,000 students from 160 un-aided schools. It was decided to provide books to all standards from 5^th to 10^th who are deprived of their rights, which students from other schools are already benefitting. The project was planned meticulously by identifying list of books to be distributed, number of students in each school, number of sets of books required for each standard etc. Funds were generated from corporates and well-wishers to meet the total requirement of about Rs. 11 lakh. Books were procured directly from government agency and distributed to all schools as per the exact number of students studying in their schools. More than 10,000 students in 160 schools were benefitted by this project. The books will be circulated to the students of the next batch every year till the curriculum remains same. MLC Dattatray Sawant personally supported appreciated the entire project.