Adhere to guidelines to lessen weight of school bags: Odisha Govt

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government today directed all district collectors to ensure strict implementation of the guidelines for reduction of weights of students’ school bags.

In a letter, School and Mass Education Joint Secretary  PK Mishra instructed all district  Collectors to constitute special squads at district levels to visit schools and verify compliance of the guidelines on urgent basis.

As per the guidelines, both Government and private-run  schools will have to set the accurate weight of students’ school bags. The government had earlier issued repeated instructions to district collectors to constitute squads comprising DEOs or DPCs as chairman and BEOs, DCPOs, police officers and staff of NGOs as members. The squads were supposed to verify violation of any of the provisions, if any, and submit report to the respective Directorates and School and Mass Education department.

However, no action taken report regarding constitution  of the squads and action taken by the same has been received till date, the letter stated.  The S and ME department asked all collectors to furnish required information on formation of squads by February 20 for further necessary action at this level.

Earlier, the Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) had issued a circular to all states to regulate the weight of students’ school bags.