AGARTALA, August 25 (TIWN): A serious issue has been raised from a circular issued from the Directorate of School Education, Govt of Tripura instructing all District Programme Coordinators (DEOs) of all the eight districts for procurement of two books for all Secondary Schools written by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Chief Secretary S K Panda from the Annual Grant provided to 839 Schools by RMSA (Rastriya Madhyamik Shiksa Abhiyan). The circulation has once again raised question marks on the motive of the government as academicians, parents and students are skeptical as to whether these two books will do any help in Secondary Education, whether any value to Secondary level students or its a ploy to generate sales of books with no takers and force upon the State's schools to buy them ?

 On June 2 ,2014 Addl Director of School Education (RMSA), Govt of Tripura D.K.Debbarma issued a notification vide No.F.19(38)-SE/RMSA/2010(Loose) asking all the District Programme Coordinators (DEOs) of Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, West / Sepahijala / Khowai / Gomati / South / Dhalai / North / Unakoti to procure the two recently published books by a private publishing organisation Gyan Bichitra.

These two books have been written by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and the then Chief Secretary S.K.Panda. In this circular Addl Director D.K.Debbarma has categorically mentioned," It has been decided that afforsaid books ' Atit Diner Smriti' written by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and 'Eker Sathe ek melay egara-some perception' written by Dr Sanjoy Panda, Chief Secretary published by Gyan Bichitra Publication Tripura, Agartala are to be procured by all the Secondary Schools out of Annual Grant provided to 839 schools by RMSA during 2013-14.

"Moreover, the circular also said ," ... ... to please arrange to procure / purchase above two publications in a bulk for all the school libraries under your control out of Annual Grant 2013-14. (Pl. see the Circular above)

      Now it is clear that if all the DEOs are forced to spend money to purchase these two books (one copy of each per school) a total of Rs 3,52,380/- will be spent and experts term it a sheer wastage of Centrally Sponsored Scheme's (RMSA) money. These books are not taught in any school neither these are included in the list of text books nor do they will help any students. That's why TRIPURAINFOWAY.com has put the following questions for clarifications from the side of the Government in the interests of Tripura People and upholding transparency :

1) Whether such order violates the transparency or the motive of the state Govt?

2) Who will be getting the royalty to be earned from the sale of these two books in such a huge quantity ?

3) Who has instructed the Addl Director to issue such a circular?

4) Has  Govt has any specific target in assisting a purely private publication organ to increase its sell (especially for these two books)?

5) Have Chief Minister and the then Chief Secretary given their consent to School Education Department for receiving the large amount of money as royalty (as it naturally goes to the writers)?

6) Why the DEOs / HMs will buy such books for their respective schools? How it helps Secondary education ?

7) What is there in these books that can be taught to the pupils or why such stories be taught to pupils?

8) How can these two books benefit the students in increasing their knowledge?

9) Whether the any department has the right to spend Central funds in such way to appease CM, CS ?

10) Whether School Education Department has taken approval of Human Resource Development Ministry, Govt of India before issuing such order?

11) A statistics on how many copies of these books are purchased by general public so far from Gyan Bichitra?

      These questions are very much related to the transparency of any department or any govt. We can only hope that for the interests of all the people of Tripura, an immediate investigation should be ordered to unearth the motive behind these kind of waste of Government Funds.