A month after the appointment of CEO for Kalvi TV ran into a controversy, the school education department of Tamil Nadu seems to be slipping into yet another quandary. The school education department on August 22 had called for two tenders to purchase equipment for Kalvi TV. But most of the equipment in the tender were outdated, not compatible to be used in a live TV studio.
The tenders called by the school education department to procure equipments for Kalvi TV under the Samagra Siksha programme seems to have been tweaked to purchase a particular brand of equipment and to accommodate few companies supplying those brands. The 139-page request for proposal of 'Selection of firms for supply, installation, integration, testing, commissioning and 24×7 maintenance support of studio equipment for the period of five years for Samagra Siksha,' a copy of which is available with THE WEEK, proposes to procure various outdated video studio equipment of specific brands for developing the Kalvi TV infrastructures, which are not widely used in broadcast stations. Kalvi TV, though run by the state government, falls under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, an overarching programme introduced by the central government, for the school education from pre-primary to class 12, to provide equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes. It subsumes the three schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE) under one umbrella.
On August 22, two tenders or 'Request for proposal' were called for by the school education department for Kalvi TV. One for video studio equipment and the other for animation lab equipment. The pre-bid meeting for finalising the tenders was held on September 16. During the meeting, one of the participants said, “Usually such tenders will have generic specifications of the equipment and not the specific brand names. But this tender has specifications, copy pasted for several equipment which points to a particular brand. Calling for supply for specific brands will only end up as a single quote and favourable for only one company which supplies the equipment.” A video copy of the pre-bid meeting is also available with THE WEEK.
Yet another participant while mentioning about the audio equipment mentioned in tender is heard saying, “You have called bids for brands like Shure Mic and Yamaha. And the configurations of the Apple computers mentioned in the tender is outdated. You will not get those equipment anywhere in the world.” Sources close to Kalvi TV office bearers in the school education department, on conditions of anonymity said that the 'Request for proposal' was prepared in such a way it favours a few former IITians who are edutech entrepreneurs.
Incidentally, in both the tenders, the total tender value is not specified even when the cost of the equipment mentioned in the request or the tender document values around Rs 3 crore. But the actual amount allotted for purchasing the equipment for Kalvi TV is only Rs 50 lakhs. Tamil Nadu’s School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh during a press conference in Chennai, on August 17, flanked by his cabinet colleagues, Raghupathy and S.S.Shivashankar said that Rs 50 lakhs has been allotted for revamping the Kalvi TV studio and purchasing equipment. “Kalvi TV is a source for knowledge for the students. The government has always stood by the students and Kalvi TV is run for the welfare of the students,” Mahesh said during the press conference.
Kalvi TV is a television channel established by former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa during the erstwhile AIADMK regime to help the schoolgoing children learn extra hours from a distance and understand the lessons better. The channel was used as a platform to teach government school students.