Imphal, October 25: Thanks to the inefficiency of the State Government, officials the Board of Secondary Education Manipur are running against time to print and market the text books for class I to VIII on time in the face of a deadline served by two student bodies.

Despite the printing works beginning well in advance misplace/loss of files related to financial transactions between the Board and State Government has led to stoppage of funding that ultimately resulted in cessation of printing works as the former could not supply print material (papers) to some printing press which were assigned the task of printing the text books, revealed the Board�s Deputy Secretary (Text Book) Huirem Manglem.

Despite student bodies setting a deadline for completing the print work of the text books and ensuring its availability by December 31, the Board responsible for marketing the prescribed text books from class I-VIII are besieged with fund constraints.

Reacting to the threat raised by AMSU and DESAM in case the BSEM fails to complete the printing process within December this year so that the text books are available to the students before the next academic session (Feb, 2006), Huirem Manglem said printing works have been suspended for quite some time now.

Citing non-release of requisite funds to procure print material (papers) for suspending the printing works being allotted to some printing establishments, Manglem stated that despite all out efforts printing works for 52 different text books had to be shelved due to paucity of fund.

He however expected the State Government to release the requisite amount within this week in which case ensuring availability of text books in the markets would not be a problem.

Explaining on the missing files which led to the suspension of fund flow, Manglem said expenses borne by the Board for preparation of text books of Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan were submitted to the state�s Education Directorate (Schools) on July 11 for necessary perusal and re-allocation.

After the first intimation (file) was reported un-traceable another copy of fresh bill liable to the Board was resubmitted to the Government on September 13 but the same went missing again till it surfaced only on October 23, said Manglem.

At the initiative of the School Education Commissioner, the financial transaction file is being processed at a hectic pace to guarantee release of pending fund to the board, said Manglem while expressing gratitude to the Commissioner for his interest and relentless efforts to solve the problem.

If the bill is cleared within this week, the Board can resume paper procurement process from Hindustan Paper Corporation, he said and exuded confidence of the printing works to be completed in 10-15 days time.

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