State edu dept fails to weigh school bags

The state education department has not conducted a survey to check the weight of school bags. The schools mentioned there has been no physical inspection in this matter even after four months of the start of the academic year. While, the department responsible to conduct surprise checks in schools does not have clear survey data of city schools.

The weight of a school bag should not be more than 1/10th of the weight of a student as per a government notification of July 2015.

This means that if a student weighs around 40 kilograms then the school bag of that student should not weigh more than 4 kg. The government also notified the state school education department to conduct random monthly checks in schools to maintain the weight limit. These surprise checks have been conducted in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) schools but the report shows data of Mumbai schools as not available.

A senior officer of the department said, “We have conducted the survey in civic run schools on a monthly basis. But we do not have data of the other schools of the city. We are still trying to collect data.” The checks are supposed to be conducted through various district levels of the state.

But the department which was busy with the First Year Junior College (FYJC) admission process claimed that they have started with the survey.