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Monsoons started and PMC schoolchildren still to get raincoats.
It has been 2 months since the monsoon has set in and municipal school students are still waiting for raincoats pointing towards gross mismanagement. Politicians blame wrong tender process and poor quality of material for the delay.
It has been 2 months since the monsoon has set in and municipal school students are still waiting for raincoats pointing towards gross mismanagement.
Politicians blame wrong tender process and poor quality of material for the delay.
"The functioning of the board leaves much to be desired. The powers of the members should be taken away and the board should be dissolved," leader of the house Shankar (Bandu) Kemse said at a Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) general body meeting.
"What is the use of these raincoats after the rainy season is over? The administration must make sure the raincoats are provided in time. Technical aspects of tenders should be completed appropriately," leader of opposition in PMC Arvind Shinde said.
Of the 20 crores that the administration spends on food, uniforms, textbooks, notebooks, shoes, school bags and other educational material for students, around ₹2 crores are for raincoats.
Congress corporator Avinash Bagwe demanded that a senior official with a clean image and integrity be given the task of procurement. "Some officials are carrying out the purchase to favour some contractors," he alleged.
Corporators of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) wore raincoats during the meeting as a mark of protest. They demanded that raincoats be given to students within 2 days.
"The tenders were issued in March, and then the material samples were tested. The quality of raincoats was sub-standard. So the decision was taken to carry out the tender process again. It has delayed the distribution. It will be given to students soon," Shubhangi Chavan of the school board said in reply to the allegations.
The PMC school board runs 310 Marathi, English, Urdu and Kannada medium schools that are attended by around one lakh students, most of them from poor social and financial backgrounds.
Mayor Prashant Jagtap directed the civic administration to speed up the process of distributing raincoats. "The administration should make sure that all the educational material reaches the students on time. Necessary steps must be taken to provide the items within 10 days," he said.
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