The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) alleged that the State government has misused as much as ₹1200 crore of public funds to purchase tabs with Byju’s content for school children.
Addressing a press conference, here on Monday, CPI-M State secretary V. Srinivasa Rao said that the government purchased as many as 9,52,925 tabs over the past two years. He claimed that last year, the Samsung A7 tab was sold at ₹11,999 by Amazon, and the wholesale price was ₹9,000, but the government spent ₹13,262 on each. Similarly, last year, the Acer tab cost ₹14,000, but the government purchased the same for ₹17,500. Thus, the purchase of tabs amounted to a ‘scam’ of ₹2,500 crore, he alleged. “Where have these excess payments gone? The onus lies on the government to clear the air, and conduct an enquiry,” he added.
He further claimed instead of supporting the NCERT Deeksha website, the government wanted to benefit Byjus. “The government spent ₹15,500 per tab only to benefit Byju’s company, which might have incurred not more than ₹5,500 for its content. Notwithstanding, they were charging ₹10,000 per tab,” he alleged.
“The Central government says that there were 40,000 teacher posts vacant in the State, while the State government comes out with a new figure every day. On one occasion, the government said 800 posts were vacant, and later said that 4,000 posts were vacant. Only to benefit Byjus, the government was not filling up the vacancies,” he alleged.
