THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has demanded a comprehensive probe into the corruption involved in the granting of contract for textbook printing to a private press and to take urgent action to make available textbooks to students.
Kodiyeri said that the government had entrusted three government presses with the task of printing 60 lakh textbooks.
But there had been a conscious delay in providing printing materials to the presses and thereby stalling the printing of the books. He said that even under constraints the government presses had printed 11 lakh books. Kodiyeri alleged that such a situation was consciously created to give the contract to a private press with the motive of claiming commission.
He pointed out that compared to the contract given to KPBS, the cost of printing had increased by six times when it was granted to the Manipal Press in Karnataka.
The KBPS had offered to print a textbook at the rate of `2.50 to `3, while the Manipal Press charged `9.50 to `17.50 per copy.
The government exchequer would have to incur an additional expense of `4.50 crore.
Meanwhile, there was an allegation that the there was no transparency in the contract reached between the government and the private press. Following that, the private press had moved the High Court, charging that despite quoting lower prices through the tender for the printing contract, it was sidelined and the contract was given to those who quoted rates higher than them.
The High Court had issued notice seeking explanation from the government. Kodiyeri alleged that there were reports of corruption worth `20 crore involved in the printing contract given for the textbooks for Plus One and Plus Two classes.
Under the given circumstances, the students would not get the textbooks in the near future, he said.
Kodiyeri said that the government had already tried to sabotage the public general education sector by sabotaging the SSLC results. The same attitude had been shown in the case of printing of textbooks, he alleged.
