School Ed Dept incurred avoidable expenditure of CHENNAI: The distribution of Rs 23 cr on textbooks: CAG

“The failure of Directorates of School and Elementary Education in verifying the correctness of claims preferred by Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation and the failure of the Director of School Education in detecting errors in the textbooks, which was reprinted, had resulted in avoidable expenditure of Rs 23.26 crore,” said the report tabled in the Assembly. The Directorate of School Education issued orders to Tamil Nadu Text Book Corporation in October 2014 to print 1.36 crore copies of textbooks for classes 11 and 12. In June 2015, the Directorate requested the Corporation to urgently reprint 6.36 lakh textbooks for classes 11 and 12.

“Thus, the failure of the Directorate in verifying the correctness of claims and failure to detect had resulted in avoidable expenditure of Rs 23.27 crore to the exchequer,” the CAG report pointed out. In addition, creating “unfruitful” assets by casual handling of expensive, high-tech building management system in Anna Centenary Library, which is functioning under the School Education Department, led to a loss of Rs 7.28 crore. The audit report said the non-functioning of the Integrated Building Management System (IBMS), which helps in effective usage of various electro-mechanical systems through optimised energy usage by integration with chillers, lighting, UPS, diesel generator sets, fire alarm system, lifts, and electrical energy meters, had led to an expenditure of Rs 5.25 crore. The CAG further pointed out that though ten lifts and two escalators were provided at the library campus at a cost of Rs 2.60 crore, delayed payment to the suppliers and non-maintenance resulted in six lifts becoming unusable.