The school education department started distributing new uniforms bearing the Biswa Bangla logo in government and government-aided schools on Tuesday.
The uniforms, navy blue and white with the shirt or the kameez displaying the logo, were scheduled to be delivered by mid-June.
The school education department announced in March the standard colour code for school uniforms from pre-primary to Class VIII in all government and government-aided schools.
An official of the Kolkata District Primary Council said the uniforms were delivered to six primary schools in wards 101 (parts of Baghajatin, Garia, Baishnabghata) and 108 (Kasba) of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
“The uniforms were also distributed in some schools in Chowbaga off EM Bypass. The exercise has started in Kolkata and will cover all districts gradually,” the official said. The government this year decided on getting readymade uniforms delivered through the MSME, panchayat or rural development departments instead of transferring funds to the schools to procure them.
Many students were turning up in casual clothes in school because the state government had yet to deliver school uniforms over two weeks after the summer vacation.
Because of the delay, some parents had got their own uniforms stitched. They will have to be discarded now because the shirts do not have the logo.
A government school teachers’ association in early April had written to chief minister Mamata Banerjee to reconsider the decision to introduce a common colour code for school uniforms as each uniform reflects “the legacy” of the institution.
“It is unfortunate that our request was not heard. We had written that keeping in mind West Bengal’s ancient heritage as well as the need to be progressive, these schools devised uniforms that aimed to preserve our legacy and foster unity in diversity”, said Saugata Basu, general secretary of the Government School Teachers’ Association.
Once the new uniforms are delivered, students (till Class VIII) of an institution like Hare School, for example, have to bid adieu to white shirts and black pants, which have been the school’s uniform for over seven decades. At Sanskrit Collegiate School, white shirts and olive green pants have been the uniform for 100 years.
An official in the district inspectors of schools office in Calcutta said they hoped to complete the distribution by early August.
“As the schools had to be shut early from May 2 because of the heatwave like conditions, the process of taking measurements suffered a blow. But with the resumption of schools from June 27 the self-help groups resumed the exercise,” he said.