Bengaluru: The state government has decided to retain its cycle scheme despite receiving complaints that it was failing and an inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the execution process. The state spends about Rs 185 Crore on free distribution of cycles for students in government schools but this scheme has been plagued by delays and quality issues with the cycles.
Even this year, there are delays in the execution of the scheme due to the problems in issuing of tenders and finalising of the order.
This year, on November 5, almost 14,585 cycles were supposed to be distributed to both boys and girls of the various schools.
For the rights to distribute, there were four bidders in the fray as a single cycle for girls cost Rs 3900 and as for boys Rs 3600. During the beginning of this academic year, the secretary of the Department of Education had sought a report from all the deputy directors of public instruction across the state on the usage levels of these cycles.
They found out that there were cases wherein various schools had reported that the cycles were not of standard quality and that they would get worn out very soon. All of these issues were discussed on November 27 with Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy who then instructed the officials to stop the distribution and the payments for the cycles.
The officials after the meeting, stated that the process and the quality of the cycles to be distributed, would be closely monitored from now on.
The usage of the distributed cycles among the students has also been a problem as students who come from far off places prefer to hand over the cycles to their parents.
A principal in Bengaluru also stated that girl students rarely used cycles and when questioned they would say that their parents had taken it to work.
