Akhilesh Yadav bags rot in godown

BAREILLY: Lakhs of school bags with pictures of former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and slogans of Samajwadi Party are lying around in musty storerooms across Uttar Pradesh.

Late in 2016, the education department had begun the process of supplying these bags to school students across the state, and had begun quality checks on them. However, the model code of conduct came into force at the beginning of this year. By then, bags had been distributed in 46 districts. In some other districts, the bags never arrived in the storerooms. In the rest, the bags did arrive but were never distributed.

In Bareilly division alone, across three districts, 90,000 of the bags are in storage, while one district did not receive them. Now with the change in guard in the state, officials are awaiting instructions from the government on what to do with them. Each bag costs Rs 144.40.

The Akhilesh Yadav government had announced last year that it would distribute over 1.80 crore bags to students of class I to VIII enrolled in basic schools, aided junior high schools, aided madrassas and aided secondary schools. The students of class VI to VIII in government inter colleges also were to receive the bags.

The government had introduced three sizes of bags for class I-II, class III-V and class VI-VIII. Apart from a picture of Akhilesh Yadav with a tag line 'Khoob padho, khoob badho' (study well, progress well), the bags sport SP's slogan' Ummedo ka pradesh, Uttar Pradesh' (state of hope, Uttar Pradesh).

Bareilly basic shiksha adhikari Chandana Ram Iqbal Yadav said, "We have received nearly 35,000 school bags in Bareilly district. I have written to the state government to seek directions on what to do with them."

In neighbouring Badaun, 34,300 bags are lying in storerooms. Rakesh Patel, coordinator of basic education in Pilibhit, said, "The department returned the school bag budget of Rs 2.42 crore to the state government before the end of 2016-17 as model code of conduct was enforced. However, we have nearly 20,000 bags in our storerooms."

Minister of state (independent charge) for basic education, Anupma Jaiswal said, "When officials of these districts contact us, we will give directions to them. The priority of our government is to provide students books and school bags by July 1."