With no funds for essentials, staff struggle to manage BBMP schools

Without funds to buy even essentials like chalk and paper, principals and teachers struggle to keep Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) primary and high schools running.

The incharge headmistress of a BBMP Primary School in Tasker Town said the contingency amount for stationery, annual day cultural events and general upkeep of the school has not been released in two years.
“They have not given us money to buy floor cleaner, chalk or even paper, yet when they come for inspection, officials expect the classrooms to be neat and tidy.”

 Teachers did not want children to miss out on the annual day celebration because of lack of funds, so they pitched in to organise cultural activities and snacks for them, the headmistress said.

No funds
“We don’t have funds to even buy paper to conduct examinations. We get around Rs 12,000 a year from the state government under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and we try to manage with that. We did not have an annual day celebration this year because we couldn’t afford it,” said a headmistress of another primary school in Cantonment.

The school has around 150 students enrolled from Class 1 to 7. “BBMP neglects schools and then questions us about why enrolments are reducing. Even uniforms and shoes are not supplied on time,” she said. The situation is the same in all BBMP schools.

“There was a problem with the accounts department because they wanted us to call for tenders for items like chalk and brooms, since the sum total of contingency amount for all schools and colleges was greater than Rs 1 lakh.

According to the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements Act, 1999, tender has to be called if the amount exceeds Rs 1 lakh,” said S G Raveendra, special commissioner for education, BBMP.

Raveendra said that in the next academic year, the problem would not persist and teachers will get approximately Rs 5,000 a month directly in their school’s account.