K'taka: Education department’s apathy forces kids to wear poor quality uniforms

Lakhs of government schoolchildren ended up wearing ‘poor quality’ uniforms in some districts, where two state-run agencies have been found to have supplied sub-standard cloth for the previous academic year.

This has become a headache for the department of school education and literacy.

Provision to return

As per norms, the department has to return the unstitched cloth supplied by the vendor if the quality is poor.

In this case, by the time the department realised that the quality was not good enough, students had got their uniforms stitched.

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Now, the department is in a fix as it has to either make payment or return the unstitched cloth, seeking replacement. But there is no unstitched cloth.

Cloth for the uniforms was supplied by the Karnataka State Textile Infrastructure Development Corporation (KSTIDC) and Karnataka Handloom Development Corporation (KHDC).

Material supplied by KSTIDC to two districts in the Belagavi division and by KHDC in some districts was 40% poor.

5% variation

“We will allow a quality variation of up to 5% with a fine. If the variation is above 5%, we will seek replacement. In this case, we are not in a position to decide over payment as there is no cloth left with us to return and get replacement. We have requested the government to discuss and take a decision at the chief secretary’s level,” a senior officer said. For the current academic year, the department changed the tender given to KSTIDC as it failed to supply uniforms on time.

Delay this year

“It’s been more than a month since schools opened for the current academic year. But some districts in the Belagavi division have not got the cloth for the uniforms yet. Considering the delay, the department cancelled the tender and transferred it to a private firm,” the officer said.

Even the tender awarded to KHDC in the Kalaburagi division was withdrawn, following a delay in supplying the uniforms.

For the current academic year, KSTIDC was asked to supply 20.25 lakh meters of cloth worth Rs 12.74 crore and KHDC 27.68 lakh meters worth Rs 19.2 crore.

In Belagavi and Kalaburagi divisions, around 6.5 lakh children studying in classes 1-10 in government and aided schools get free uniforms.