West Bengal orders 252 madrasas shut after a count of 2,396 unregistered schools

West Bengal has ordered 252 madrasas to close and sent show-cause notices to about 100 more after a statewide survey of unaided and unregistered schools. Minority Affairs and Madrasah Education Minister Kshudiram Tudu said the 252 lacked minimum infrastructure. The 100 must reply. If the replies fail, they will face the same order.

District magistrates first counted 2,132 madrasas with registration or affiliation and 2,396 without registration or affiliation from any government body or board. State inspection teams then re-checked the files against the buildings. The closures concentrate in the north and the south: about 44-45 in Malda, 37-38 in North Dinajpur, 32-33 in South 24 Parganas, 27-28 in Birbhum, and about 25 each in Murshidabad and Nadia.

Tudu said the department wants students in those classrooms to follow the state school syllabus and sit the same exams as other children. He also said madrasas that already hold approvals will keep running. The survey ran from early June across all 22 districts and Kolkata, covering rooms, teachers, pupil numbers, management and funding.

What minimum infrastructure meant on the file

The department's public account is specific. Some of the 252 had too few classrooms, too few teachers or too few students. Some had moved off the prescribed syllabus and administrative rules. Khariji madrasas, which take no government money and hold no board affiliation, were a particular target of the field check. They run on donations and trusts. That is legal until the state decides the building and the books do not meet the school standard it now wants to enforce.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari ordered the count of authorised and unauthorised madrasas. Panchayati Raj Minister Dilip Ghosh said people arrested in extremist cases had, in some instances, been found teaching in such schools. BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya backed the closures. Those political lines will travel with the order. The order itself is an education-department closure notice, not a police charge sheet.

Show-cause is not closure. The 100 schools still have a paper to file. The 252 do not. Where those children go on Monday is the part of the story the notices do not write. Malda and North Dinajpur already run crowded government and aided schools. A closed Khariji classroom of 40 pupils does not automatically produce 40 seats next door.

A large unregistered map

2,396 institutions without affiliation is the number that should sit next to 252. The closures are a first cut of the unregistered list, not the list itself. The department said verification will continue. That means more notices if the re-checks keep finding empty rooms, missing teachers or a syllabus that does not match the board.

West Bengal's madrasa system has always split between recognised institutions under the state board and independent religious schools. The Adhikari government is using infrastructure and syllabus, not a ban on religious instruction, as the legal hook. Courts will see that distinction if the closures are challenged. Parents will see whether a seat exists in a recognised school before the next term starts.

Tudu's sentence about mainstream education is the policy. The 252 notices are the first enforcement. The 2,396 unregistered count is the backlog. Those three figures, not the speeches around them, are what the next survey will be measured against.