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Yogi Sweaters For UP’s School Children After Winter Loses Sting?

Red tape and supply crunch dent UP government’s sweater plan for over 1.5 crore students.
School Children

Newsclick Image by Nitesh Kumar

Winter is about to be over, but for the Yogi Adityanath government it has not started yet. Over 1.5 crore students, studying in UP’s 1.68 lakh government schools, have been forced to attend school without sweaters the state had promised to buy them at beginning of the winter season.

According to senior officials of the primary education department, over 1.54 crore schoolchildren in the state were supposed to receive these sweaters. But until now only 8.55% totalling just 18 lakh children have benefited from the move. This, despite an allocation of Rs 690 crore in the state government budget for the same.

The sweater distribution work was supposed to start by January 6 but the process is yet to begin in more than half of the state. There are only 34 districts where the sweater distribution work has started at some level.

The apathy has led to made many parents unhappy since a large part of the chilling winter would be gone by the time their children receive the woollens.

The government had decided to distribute sweaters for free to 1.54 crore students between Classes I and VIII, sanctioning an additional budget of Rs 390 crore besides the Rs 300 crore earmarked for distribution of shoes and socks.  

The director of the primary education department Sarvendra Vikram Bahadur Singh has chastised primary education officers in all the districts on the tardy progress in the sweater distribution work, saying the process has been “extremely unsatisfying”.

“All the district primary education officers have been asked to personally monitor the sweater distribution work and ensure that it speeds up, otherwise they will be individually held responsible and strict action will be taken against them,” Singh has told the media.

Department officials have told NewsClick that the state government had kept December 23 as the day of opening the tenders to purchase sweaters. But repeated failures in issuing a state-wide tender led to the decision that the sweaters would be purchased and distributed at the school level itself on January 6. 

A four member committee headed by the Principal has to ascertain the number of students from the attendance register before purchasing the maroon colour  sweater in four sizes—small for kids of class I and II, medium for class III and IV, large for class V and VI, and extra-large for class VII and VIII. But the process took a hit due to a sudden dearth in maroon sweaters in the local market.

“We tried to connect sweater manufacturers with districts that are facing a supply crunch. But the efforts did not bear any fruit because there are not enough sweaters in the market available at such low rates,” said a senior department official on the condition of anonymity. “There was a lot of problems due to differences in rate estimates. While the government rate for each sweater was Rs 200, the price quoted by private sweater manufacturer was Rs 350. So it took us some time to deal with price variations.” 

The process of sweater distribution has begun in districts such as Bulandshahr, Hapur, Mathura, Mainpuri, Rapur, Balia, Faizabad, Ambedkarnagar, Kaushambi, Jhansi and Lalitpur. Officials hope that the process will be completed in the entire state by end-January or the first week of February by which time the winter would have lost its sting.

Speaking to NewsClick, Umesh Dwivedi, the president of the Basic and Middle School Teachers Union, said: “What would be the point of distributing sweaters after the winter is over?”

The Opposition too has targeted the state government on the issue. “The Yogi Adityanath government is repeatedly cancelling the tender pertaining to sweaters and the school children are waiting for them. It should not happen that children languish in false hope and the tender process gets completed by May-June,” Samajwadi Party president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav tweeted last month.

Yadav's tweet led to the basic education minister Anupama Jaisawal clarifying that the sweaters would be distributed at the earliest. “Why is Akhilesh Yadav so worried now? We have distributed the socks and shoes. If he had shown the same concern for the children earlier, then sweaters would have been distributed earlier. We had to take into account the colours, price and a host of other specifications before buying the sweaters which took time,” Jaisawal said, adding that she had pledged not to wear a sweater until they are distributed to the children.

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