Scores of Municipal Corporation of Delhi school students await notebooks
NEW DELHI: Three months after the start of the new academic session, primary schools run by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation finally began distributing notebooks to their students last week. Students of 36 schools run by the corporation had received the notebooks by Thursday, an east MCD education official claimed. In the schools run by the North MCD, however, nearly three lakh children are still waiting for their notebooks to arrive.
Six-year-old Bhanu, a Class I student of an MCD school in Azadpur, loves to write. Her father bought her a new notebook at the beginning of the session in April and that’s the only one she is still carrying to school. “Poor people like us send our children to government schools thinking basic facilities will be take care of by them,” said Bhanu’s grandmother Sharda. “We bought her a notebook at the start of the session, but it is difficult for us to afford another one with a meagre family income of `5,000 per month.”
Section 8 of the Right to Education Act clearly states that all government-run schools have to provide free books and stationery to all the students. The principal of an East MCD-run school acknowledged that the distribution of notebooks had begun this month, but said the process was yet to gain pace. “We received a message from the corporation confirming the arrival of notebooks at their store in Shahdara on July 4. Usually, the notebooks are sent to the schools. But if it gets delayed by another week, we’ll send someone to collect the stock,” the principal said.
Teachers said it becomes difficult to teach if the students do not get all the reading and writing materials at the start of the session.This is not the first time the corporation-run schools have had to face delays in arrival of notebooks. Last year, the school received the supplies in August-end. In 2016, two parents had gone to the Delhi High Court over the issue.
An education official at East MCD blamed e-tendering process for the delay in 2016. For the north corporation schools, the tendering process this year is still on. North MCD’s deputy director (education) said issuing tenders was a long process and a major reason for the delay in the procurement. “If the approval of tender for notebooks takes another month, we’ll deposit cash into the bank accounts of children for the purchase of notebooks,” the official said.