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Journalism of Courage
To fix accountability in the seizure of school textbooks books from a scrap godown — as first reported by The Indian Express, these books were meant for distribution under the government’s showpiece Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan — one only has to trail the books before they reach students.
Almost immediately after the academic session begins in July, the Bhopal-based Rajya Shiksha Kendra (RSK) activates the process to find out next year’s demand for books. The RSK writes to district collectors who in turn seek details from cluster resource coordinators. By taking into account current enrollment, growth rate and deducting books available with them, collectors get back to RSK by August-end.
The RSK compiles details from all districts and passes them to Madhya Pradesh Text Book Corporation (MPTBC) which invites open tenders and begins the process to print lakhs of books. The printing gets over by March-end and books are supposed to reach eight regional godowns of MPTBC and from there to district headquarters by June 15. The books are then taken to clusters — a cluster headquarters caters to about 15 to 20 schools — and later to individual schools by June-end.
When schools reopen on July 1, books are distributed among students, and the Parent-Teacher Association in every school issues a certificate. Such certificates are compiled at the cluster level and are forwarded to the district project coordinator. The final report sent to RSK is signed by the district collector and the DPC.
The entire distribution process is monitored by the DPC and block resource coordinators. Another parallel mechanism is put in place by the district collector who appoints nodal officers drawn from other departments. They visit schools in June-end to know whether books have reached and follow it up with another visit in the first or second week of July for getting details of distribution.
Obviously, this foolproof mechanism exists only on paper.
As reported by The Indian Express, several students in this district never received textooks when the schools reopened on July 1, 2006. Books were later seized from scrap godowns.
While students and teachers gave up on the books after a couple of months, district project coordinator Vivek Tiwari sent a fresh demand on August 2, 2006 without giving details. This, when surplus books were still lying in godowns. Not only did RSK not ask for an explanation but also sent 69 bundles of Marathi and Urdu books though they were not asked for.
The block resource coordinators sent certificates, saying books had been distributed though they were not. Action has been recommended against BRCs.
Action is yet to be taken against Tiwari. So far, only three teachers — Ramesh Pawar, Abhay Gotekar and Shivpal Ingle — and scrapdealer Amin Motwani have been arrested.
