Mumbai: The class 9 students of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)-run schools are yet to get their educational tabs when almost half of the academic year is over. Even the class 10 students of several civic schools are too yet to get their textbooks.
According to sources, the reason is that purchase of tabs and textbooks is still undergoing process with the account department of the civic body due to tax and GST slab. The central purchase department of the BMC education department claimed that they have invited tenders for companies to approach but nothing has been successfully worked out. Moreover, for the academic year 2017-18 the Maharashtra State bureau of textbook production and curriculum research popularly known as Balbharti changed the syllabus of class 9, which is why the already prepared tabs had to be returned for upgradation.
Talking about the class 10 textbooks, a teacher said that some of the textbooks have been delayed because of less stock. “We have been managing to study the chapters in guides or online PDFs,” said the teacher.
A source at the department revealed that because of the GST, there was a change in the rate of the textbooks because of which the work got stuck. However, Mahesh Palkar, BMC education officer, rubbished all the claims made by the teachers saying, “We have distributed the class 10 textbooks but the work of distributing tabs is still going on which will be done shortly.”
According to central purchase department of BMC’s education department, the problem began in April.
“In March, we uploaded tender invitations. However, till April end we did not get any bidders for it. This had delayed the process,” said a CPD official.
