Contact nos. issued to lodge complaint against textbook & uniform practices

Bhopal: District collector Kaushlendra Vikram Singh has issued mobile nos. of officials block-wise on which parents being ‘forced' by private schools to buy school books or uniforms from a particular shop or buy costly books in place of prescribed books in the syllabus may lodge their complaint. For Fanda block of Bhopal, the officials with whom the complaints can be lodged are district project coordinator Chandra Prakash Sharma (mobile no. 98939998738), block education officer Vinod Kumar Rajoria (9893762623) and additional project coordinator A K Vijayvargiya (9229444908). For Berasia block, block education officer R N Srivastri (9981404215), principal of a school Vijendra Katare (8269418804) and another school principal Pradeep Rajawat (9826214864) have been assigned the task. Any aggrieved parent or student from Bhopal may lodge their complaint on any of these mobile numbers.Meanwhile, in a fresh order on Tuesday, the district collector formed teams under SDM of respective areas of Bhopal district to carry out inspection based on information received from media reports or other sources regarding parents of private school students being forced to buy books, uniforms and other study material from a particular shop or buying books of private publications not prescribed in the syllabus. The teams comprising four members each will have SDMs of the respective areas as heads. Laxmikant Sharma will head the team for TT Nagar area, Archana Sharma (TT Nagar), Ravishankar Rai (Kolar Road), Aditya Jain (Bairagarh), Ravish Srivastava (Govindpura), Vinod Sonakia (Huzur) and Ashutosh Sharma (Berasia). The MP Parents' Association, however, said that the district collector's initiative to check schools forcing parents to buy books and uniforms from a particular shop and asking them to buy costly books not prescribed in the syllabus of students has come too late. General secretary of the association, Prabodh Pandya said that parents tend to buy books, uniforms and other things required for their children at school before the commencement of new session. The new session had begun on April 1, the collector should have issued the order before that to make it effective.