'Edu dept incurs Rs 4 cr wasteful expenditure on free coaching classes for students'
The CAG report, pointed out that under the scheme, 73,885 students were coached in 412 schools, including 27 District Institute of Educational Training (DIET).
CHENNAI: The report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has revealed that the lapses in the implementation of free coaching classes for students appearing in competitive exams has resulted in infructuous expenditure of Rs 4.27 crore on different purchases.
The wasteful expenditure was Rs 2.12 crore on hardware purchase and avoidable additional expenditure of Rs 2.15 crore on purchasing books.
For students in government and aided schools, free coaching was held for students to prepare for competitive exams such as National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) from 2017.
The CAG report, pointed out that under the scheme, 73,885 students were coached in 412 schools, including 27 District Institute of Educational Training (DIET).
TN government accepted the proposal of setting up coaching centres at the cost of Rs 19.79 crore, to be incurred by TN Text Book and Educational Services Corporation (TNBESC).
A further scrutiny revealed that dish antennae purchased for Rs 55,000 for each of 385 coaching centres, amounting to Rs 2.12 crore was largely kept ideal. Also, TNBESC printed 4.24 lakh books at the cost of Rs 3.18 crore upon the recommendation of the service provider.
But, the provider themselves preferred guide books published by a different agency, which was brought at the cost of Rs 2.15 crore, incurring wasteful expenditure.
Subsequently, the audit analysis of the scheme implementation, revealed violation of the provision of the TN Transparency in Tender Act, 1998.
"The open tender was not called in for the selection of service provider, which is a violation of the Act. Instead, the service provider M/s Sai Speed Medical Institute Private Limited was finalised merely on the basis of a powerpoint presentation made to the school education minister and principal secretary, "stated the report.
Additionally, the MoU signed between October 2017 and May 2020, was discontinued due to payment issues. Interestingly, the MoU did not mention mandatory provisions like payment, penalty, dispute resolution.