Free bicycles to kids: Firms may be fined for violation

The vendors who supplied bicycles under the ‘free bicycle’ scheme to children in government-aided schools for 2019-20 academic year will have to pay the penalty for violating parameters mentioned in tender documents.

Following the report submitted by the technical committee, the department of primary and secondary education has decided to penalise companies which supplied the cycles. According to officials from the department, “a few parameters mentioned in the tender document have not been adhered to.”

Explaining this, Dr K G Jagadeesha, commissioner for public instruction, said, “This year, we had constituted a committee of engineering college professors to verify the quality of cycles and the report submitted by the committee has been forwarded to the technical committee. The technical committee said a few parameters have not been adhered to, but that has not impacted the overall quality of cycles.”

He said the report has been forwarded to the government. “The payment for the supplier will be made after deducting penalty amount, once the response to the report is received,” said Jagadeesha. In the 2019-20 academic year, the department had invited tenders worth Rs 180 crore to supply 5.04 lakh cycles.

The then chief minister H D Kumaraswamy had directed the department officials to put the cycle distribution on hold till they receive a quality report about the cycles supplied. This was after complaints were raised by several elected representatives about the quality of the cycles.