HP Education Minister tells Assembly just one complaint received on sub-standard school uniform

The Himachal Pradesh government has received only one complaint against sub-standard school uniform, state Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj informed the Assembly here on Monday.

The Education Department received only one complaint regarding alleged sub-standard uniform through the CM helpline number and a probe was underway in this matter, Bhardwaj said in the House on the first day of the winter session.

Attracting attention of the House towards reports in a section of media, the education minister said no compromise on standard and quality of the uniform had been made while providing those to school students.

Earlier this month, the Congress unit of Himachal Pradesh had alleged that the state BJP government distributed sub-standard uniforms under the Atal Vardi Yojana among the students of government schools. State Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore had demanded that Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur order an inquiry into the “uniform scam”.

The education minister said the Himachal Pradesh government had spent Rs 57.89 crore on providing two sets of free uniforms to 8.30 lakh students of Classes 1 to 12 in government schools under the Atal Vardi Yojana in the current session.

Mafatlal Industries was handed the work of supplying the uniforms after properly inviting open tenders through the Food and Supplies Department, he added.

As many as 676 random samples of the uniforms were collected and sent to the Shriram Institute of Industrial Research Laboratory for verification, the minister said, adding that 675 samples were found proper and the report of one sample is still awaited.

The laboratory was selected by the previous government in 2016, he said.