Delhi Assembly Speaker forms special panel to study video advertisements on govt schools

Delhi assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Thursday formed a ‘special committee’ to investigate a proposal to issue video advertisements on the government’s achievements.

Goel sought a probe after deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia told the House that bureaucrats refused to clear an ad that depicted transformation of government schools in Delhi over the past four years.

Sisodia, while replying to a motion of thanks on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s budget for 2019-20, played a four-minute video in the House, which he said was turned down by the Delhi government officials when he asked them to use it as a state-run advertisement.

The video depicted Delhi schools in a dilapidated state in 2015, when AAP came to power, and the revamped ones with facilities such as gyms and swimming pools. Made using a collection of videos shot on mobile phones, it showed Sisodia’s initial days as an education minister when he used to conduct surprise inspections and pull up teachers and school administration.

“I felt this video should be shown in cinema halls and television across the country. But education department officials denied this in writing. They questioned the authenticity of the schools shown in the video,” Sisodia said.

Gesturing towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members in the House, he said, “They intentionally got such officers posted in the Delhi government. I almost had tears in my eyes when I saw the objection from officers. I have given my blood and sweat to improve Delhi’s schools and now my own officials tell me how do we believe the schools shown in the video are government schools?”

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was present in the House, said such officials should be sent to jail after an inquiry. Taking note of Sisodia’s charge, the speaker said a special committee would look into the matter. The members of the committee will be declared later, Goel said.

Earlier, participating in a discussion on the budget, AAP MLAs hailed Sisodia and Kejriwal for “taking care of all sections of the society”.

Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta said despite “tall claims” of the government, there were many areas where the budget fell short. “Sisodia gave wrong information about allocation for education. In 2018-19, it was 26.35%. In the 2019-20 budget, it reduced to 25.22%. Though the Kejriwal government strongly condemned GST before implementation, it has benefited the most in terms of revenue collection which has considerably gone up,” he said.

Sisodia responded to this by saying allocation to the education sector increased from ₹13,997 crore last year to ₹15,601 crore this year.

Responding to the GST point, he said, “Delhi’s growth rate prior to GST was expected to be 16%. But, in national interest, we compromised and settled for a growth rate of 14% like other states. We are having to take a compensation from the Centre, which clearly means GST is a failure. The Centre is yet to implement HSN codes for every goods item because of which pilferage and tax evasion still continue.”