File photo of Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy

BENGALURU: Chief minister H D Kumaraswamy has directed the officials of the primary and secondary education department to consider the possibility of scrapping the free bicycle scheme for school children in Karnataka . At a meeting of the deputy commissioners, chief executive officers (CEO) of zilla panchayat and the secretaries of all departments, Kumaraswamy was apprised by his ministerial colleague Sa Ra Mahesh over the poor quality of cycles being distributed to the 5.14 lakh students across the state.

Mahesh, at the meeting, told the CM that the cycles were so brittle that they became scrap within a few months of use. To this, Kumaraswamy sought an explanation from the education department principal secretary Shalini Rajneesh, who blamed the district officials of the department. He claimed that the companies provided samples of the best quality to them in Bengaluru, however, quality checks on the same were not taken up by the district level deputy directors for public instructions (DDPI), resulting in poor quality cycles being distributed to school children of class VIII to class X.

On hearing the explanation, CM Kumaraswamy directed the department to stop the supply of these poor quality cycles and halt all payments to the company supplying it.

Later, speaking to the media, Kumaraswamy said: “There is a complaint over poor quality of cycles being supplied to the children, as a result of which I have directed the officials to hold a departmental inquiry into the matter.”

But according to sources in the meeting, there was also a debate over whether it was possible to cancel the scheme altogether considering the persistent problems with the cycle quality over the years and the burden on the state exchequer.

It is said that no sooner did Rajneesh appraise the CM of the reasons for the poor quality of cycles and Kumaraswamy directed the department to hold an inquiry, additional chief secretary (finance) I S N Prasad suggested that the government must consider the possibility of permanently shelving the scheme.

He said the scheme was serving no purpose to the students with poor quality and suppyl issues, with even the cycles procurement becoming more and more tedious and putting unnecessary burden on the state exchequer.

At present the state government is paying Rs 3,900 per cycle for girl students and Rs 3,600 per cycle for boys, with the total expenditure at Rs 185 crore.

“On hearing this suggestion, the CM directed Rajneesh to consider the possibility of even cancelling the scheme, if it is found unviable,” said a official present at the meeting.

The scheme of supplying free cycles to students began in 2006-07, with former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa being the brainchild behind the scheme.

The scheme was primarily directed towards girl students who were traversing hilly regions and tough terrains without modes of transportation to their schools.

Soon after this, the government decided to extend the same scheme to boys. Both the schemes were extended to students studying between class VIII to class X.

Any move of cancelling the scheme may also create a political backlash as the scheme was launched by the current opposition party and was further extended by the Congress government over a period of 12 years.

