Project to give bicycles for SC students gaining

KOCHI: The state government’s initiative to distribute bicycles to Scheduled Caste (SC) students of standard VIII in government schools is set to have a fresh take off after a brief period of uncertainty.The project was launched by the state government to prevent students dropping out after completing standard VII owing to financial problems and lack of transportation facilities.Though the project was included in the UDF government’s 100- day programme, it could not be launched within the stipulated time as the High Court had stayed further steps.“The government had earlier planned to distribute 50,000 bicycles in the state through centralised purchase. But we encountered some difficulties. Primarily, no district in the state has the capacity to store the bicycles. Ernakulam alone needs 4,041 cycles.Hence the government decided to give away Rs 3,000 to each student to buy a bicycle.It was then that our efforts were impeded by a High Court stay,” District Scheduled Caste development officer K Padmarajan said.“Though the government had floated tenders for the project, instead of going for the lowest bid, the government decided to give Rs 3,000 to each student.As per the lowest bid, the cost of the bicycle will come to around Rs 2,500 and the government decided not to go for the lowest bid as it was apprehensive of the quality of the bicycle.It was against this that an individual obtained a High Court stay citing misappropriation of government funds,” Padmarajan said.He said the distribution of bicycles has been resumed as the court stay was vacated a few days ago.When asked about the chances of misuse of the funds, Padmarajan said that there would be no misappropriation of funds as there are no intermediaries.“A committee consisting of headmaster, a PTA member and a Scheduled Caste development officer will be constituted for distributing funds.The students can buy any brand of cycles and submit the bill to the committee which will reimburse the amount,” he said.S Lalithambika, director, Scheduled Caste Development, said a list has already been prepared to allocate money to schools under the project