Education Department fails to clear Rs 104 crore liability of BOSE
The Education department has a liability of over Rs 104 crore towards the Board of School Education (BOSE) for the publication of its text books.
The liability has piled up over the past five years given the failure of the department to clear the dues. According to official figures, the school education Department receives around 50 lakh books from BOSE for the students enrolled in government schools. The BOSE provides text books to department for the students from 3rd to 8th standard.
However, officials said the department has not released the amount charged by BOSE against the books. “The delay in release of money by school education department has resulted in financial crunch in BOSE,” an official in BOSE said wishing not to be named.
He said the school education department withheld the amount despite repeated reminders to clear the liabilities.
“The delay by school education department to release the amount has caused financial crunch in BOSE due to which the organization is facing hiccups in improving the quality of printing and of paper as well,” the BOSE official said.
Interestingly, the government schools are provided books for students from class 1st to 2nd class by the concerned Chief Education Officers (CEOs) under district plan while as from 3rd primary onwards to 8th standard the BOSE receives funds under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) through concerned Directorate of School Education.
“But BOSE had not received any amount for past five years from school education Department for publishing books for government schools,” the official said.
He said the education department has also failed to clear the deficit caused due to difference in the rates notified by Government of India and the actual price charged by BOSE per book set for students.
“The difference between the rates fixed by GoI and the price charged by BOSE has piled a liability in education Department which is yet to be cleared,” the official said.
As per the official figures, the GoI has notified rates for each book set under SSA as Rs 150 for class 3rd and 4th which however is published by BOSE at the cost of Rs 290 while as Rs 320 is charged per book set for class 5th.
“The GoI has notified rates for class 6th to 8th as Rs 250 per book set while as the actual cost of books charged by BOSE is Rs 425 for class 6th, Rs 520 for 7th and Rs 505 for class 8th,” the official said.
The officials said the BOSE didn’t get deficit amount from past five years.
“We have already shot a letter State Project Director (SPD) SSA regarding the matter and are expecting a breakthrough in this regard,” he said.
A top official at project Directorate of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) however said the amount charged by BOSE for publishing books for government school students is cleared every year.
“We get the money from GoI and we transfer the same amount to Director school education where from it is released to BOSE,” he said.
He however said the SSA has not been able to clear the liability of the deficit amount due to difference in rates.
“We can’t pay this amount as the rates set by GoI per book set are less than the amount charged by BOSE,” he said.
He said the SSA gets an amount of Rs 13 crore from GoI for books which are utilized judiciously.
“We pay the same amount to education Department for its release to BOSE,” the official said.
KV Correspondent
