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| Wastage of public money to fill coffers of few | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, May 19: Under the garb of compliance of Supreme Court order to provide "fire extinguishers" for ensuring the security of the school students, the education officials particularly in district Jammu, are 'fleecing' the state exchequer by indulging in arbitrary purchase of fire extinguishers without inviting "Quotations and Tenders".
Surprisingly, the decision has been taken in haste and reliable reports said that all the Chief Education Officers (CEOs) have been directed to further ask their Zonal Education Officers (ZEOs) and Principals/ headmasters to go for arbitrary purchase of fire extinguishers. There was no tenders called, no central purchase committee framed and overall no rates for approved when the DGS&D rates are available.
A glaring example of violation of set norms is of the office of the Chief Educ-ation Officer (CEO) Jammu asked all the ZEOs/ Principals/Headmasters in the district to purchase the fire extinguishers (5kg cylinder), that too from a particular dealer at a fixed rate of Rs 2385 (Inclusive of taxes), when market rate was Rs 2100. One dealer on the condition of anonymity stated that they were ready to provide the fire extinguishers on much less cost than the recommendations of the purchase committees.
This shows that something fishy is going on in the department of school education at behest of their higher ups. According to an estimate, there are nearly 20,000 government schoo-ls, inclusive of all Primary, Middle, High and Higher Secondary schools and nearly 30,000 fire extinguishers have to be purchased in first phase.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Supreme Court on March 9, 2010 granted four weeks to the States/ UTs to file compliance reports on the fire safety measures for school buildings, failing which it said the Chief Secretaries/ Administrators concerned would have to appear before it. A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and K S Radhakrishnan had passed the order after several states failed to comply with the apex court's last year's direction on mandatory fire safety norms in the wake of the infamous Kumbakonam (Tamil Nadu) school fire tragedy in which 90 children perished. Despite repeated attempts, CEO Natha Ram Dingra could not be contacted.
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