Even as the State requires school uniforms, shoes, cycles and laptops worth crores of rupees every year to distribute them among students, the Government has not taken any initiative to produce these items through MSME entrepreneurs in the State.
While this was revealed from information furnished by Industries Minister Niranjan Pujari in the Assembly on Friday, some ruling BJD members, including questioner Ranendra Pratap Swain and Debi Prasad Mishra, expressed concern that the Government has not taken initiative in this regard yet.
The Minister was, however, resented giving answer to the question, saying the question doesn’t belong to his department alone.
“We have collected information from four departments, Higher Education Department, Directorate of Industries, Skill Development and Technical Education and the School and Mass Education Department to respond to the question,” he said rather in a disgusted voice.
According to data collected from the Higher Education Department, he said 15,000 laptops are being procured through OCAC from the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and dresses worth Rs 19,08,89,350 and shoes worth Rs 1,64,47,500 procured by through registered MSME units.
Besides, the Skill Development and Technical Education provides two pairs of dresses and a pair of shoes to ITI students and the School free of cost and Mass Education Department provides dresses, each of Rs 400, to all students till Class VIII and cycles, each of Rs 2,600, to all Class IX students.