The state government is yet to deliver school uniforms even after two weeks of the completion of summer vacation.
Many students in the government and aided schools are turning up in casual attire. Some got the seam of the trousers untied so they would wear them. A few got the uniform stitched on their own.
Heads of several institutions said, delivery of the new uniforms, navy blue and white and the shirt and the kameez to have the Biswa Bangla logo, was supposed to be completed by mid-June.
A head of the institution said, many guardians got the uniforms ready on their own. But those will have to junked once the uniforms chosen by the government reach the schools.
An official of the school education department said the process of taking measurements is underway and the uniforms will likely be delivered by July.
The government in February had issued an SOP, saying ready-made uniforms for students from the pre-primary level to Class VIII at government and aided schools would be delivered by the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) department by mid-June.
The government this year decided on getting ready-made uniforms delivered through the MSME, panchayat or rural development department, instead of transferring funds to the schools to procure them.
The requirement to provide uniforms at the earliest became imperative as students have grown taller by a few inches over the past two years and many of them turn up in schools in casual attire as they no longer fit into their old uniforms.
A head of an institution in central Kolkata said they had expected the delivery of the uniforms soon after the 57-day-long summer vacation ended.
“Stitching of uniforms will start in the third week of March and the delivery of uniforms to the schools will commence from mid-April and will be completed by mid-June,” the head quoted the SOP issued in February.
“The guardians are unhappy with the delay,” he said.
Chandan Kumar Maity, headmaster of the Krishnachandrapur High School in Mathurapur, South 24-Parganas, said, in rural areas, the parents cannot afford to buy uniforms as their financial conditions have further worsened over the past two years.
“The process of taking the measurement is still going on in many areas. I wonder whether the uniforms would be ready even in July,” headmaster Maity told The Telegraph.
An official of the department said as the schools had to be shut early from May 2 because of the extreme heatwave-like conditions, the process of taking measurements took a hit.