Vendors who were roped in by the Department of Public Instruction to supply bicycles to Class 8 students of government schools in rural areas for this academic year will be penalised for not adhering to certain specifications mentioned in the tender.
The department decided on this course of action after a technical committee it had set up submitted a report.
At a press conference here on Tuesday, Commissioner for Public Instruction K.G. Jagadeesha said they had constituted a committee comprising engineering college professors to verify the quality of bicycles. It had found that the companies that supplied the bicycles did not meet all parameters agreed upon. He said however, that this has not impacted the overall quality of the cycles.
Even last year, the former Chief Minister had directed officials to stop distributing cycles after he received complaints about them. In the 2019-20 academic year, the department spent around ₹180 crore to supply 5.04 lakh cycles to Class 8 students. The scheme was introduced to help students from rural areas travel to schools.
