The schemes of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy to loot the State has been continuing in all sectors and the printing of books for school children is no exception, said TDP spokesman, Kommareddy Pattabhiram.
Pattabhiram brought before the media all the evidence about how Jagan and his coterie robbed the State in the name of printing the books for the school children. There are no exceptions to loot appears to be the policy of Jagan, the TDP national spokesman remarked. The Chief Minister should feel ashamed to mint such a huge amount of money through printing of the books of school children while campaigning that the State stood on top in the country in the academic system, he added.
Perhaps Jagan Reddy is the only Chief Minister in the whole country who is amassing wealth in the guise of school students’ books, he felt. The Chief Minister is destroying the academic sector too like other systems, Pattabhi said and stated that the teachers are humiliated by asking them to stand before liquor shops. The salaries of the teachers are not paid properly, he said.
Pattabhiram felt that the YSRCP is a sinking ship, and the party leaders too are aware of this fact due to which they are not coming forward to contest the upcoming polls. This is the reason as to why five family members of Minister for Education, Botsa Satyanarayana, are offered party tickets, he said and stated that when the Minister made it clear that he cannot bear the expenditure for five segments Jagan has thus raised the curtains for this book printing scam to make at least Rs 100 cr to Rs 120 cr.
Pattabhiram pointed out that when the paper cost was Rs 1 lakh per tonne in 2022, the printing cost for each page was fixed at only 23 paise but now when the cost of the paper has come down drastically the printing cost has been escalated to 34.2 paise per page. The earlier practice was that the government was purchasing the paper and supplying it to the printing press for publishing the books, but the Jagan Government has done away with this policy, he added. Is Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, not aware that the paper is available in the market for a much lesser price, he asked.
The State Government has totally ignored when the Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Paper Limited and the AP Offset Printing Association have mentioned at the judicial review that the cost of the paper has come down in the open market and that the Government is incurring crores of rupees through e-tender, he said. Changing the policy is nothing but raising curtains for a massive scam, Pattabhiram said and felt that besides Botsa Satyanaraya, Principal Secretary (Education), Praveen Prakash, and Secretary to the Chief Minister, Dhanujay Reddy, have played a major role in this huge scandal.
Pattabhiram said that the TDP demands that the tender be cancelled immediately, and the Government purchases the paper in the open market to take up the printing of the text books on its own.
