Bicycles clear quality test, government to continue scheme
TNN | Updated: Jan 10, 2019, 09:06 IST
BENGALURU/MANGALURU: The Karnataka government has decided to continue the ‘bicycles for high school students’ scheme after it found bicycles fit following a string of tests.
The government had, in late November, put the scheme on hold amid concerns that quality of bicycles was substandard. It spends Rs 185 crore every year to give bicycles free to 5.1 lakh students of government high schools.
After the go-ahead by ground-level officers and labs which conducted the tests, principal secretary (pr imary and secondary education) SR Umashankar said the government will hand out bicycles in the coming years too. However, the assembling of bicycle parts was an area of concern, he said, adding the government will introduce more checks to ensure bicycles ticked all the right boxes.
Of 5.1 lakh bicycles, 18% — 92,571 cycles — could not be delivered because the government wanted to assess their quality in November. This led to speculation that the Kumaraswamy government was likely to shelve the project. Following this, thousands of bicycles kept ready for distribution in many districts started gathering dust.
In Dakshina Kannada, 13,1 67 bicycles were sanctioned and about 50% of them could be distributed by November. “In Puttur and B antwal, which have the highest number of students in an education zone, bicycles could not be distributed because it took long to assemble them. Hence, about 6,000 bicycles were lying in two block ed ucat ion offices,” said a source from the department of public instruction.
The undistributed bicycles were kept on playgrounds, causing inconvenience to children looking for play area.
The government had, in late November, put the scheme on hold amid concerns that quality of bicycles was substandard. It spends Rs 185 crore every year to give bicycles free to 5.1 lakh students of government high schools.
After the go-ahead by ground-level officers and labs which conducted the tests, principal secretary (pr imary and secondary education) SR Umashankar said the government will hand out bicycles in the coming years too. However, the assembling of bicycle parts was an area of concern, he said, adding the government will introduce more checks to ensure bicycles ticked all the right boxes.
Of 5.1 lakh bicycles, 18% — 92,571 cycles — could not be delivered because the government wanted to assess their quality in November. This led to speculation that the Kumaraswamy government was likely to shelve the project. Following this, thousands of bicycles kept ready for distribution in many districts started gathering dust.
In Dakshina Kannada, 13,1 67 bicycles were sanctioned and about 50% of them could be distributed by November. “In Puttur and B antwal, which have the highest number of students in an education zone, bicycles could not be distributed because it took long to assemble them. Hence, about 6,000 bicycles were lying in two block ed ucat ion offices,” said a source from the department of public instruction.
The undistributed bicycles were kept on playgrounds, causing inconvenience to children looking for play area.
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