‘SBHS takeover a bid to improve facilities’

Cuttack: In an affidavit filed in the Orissa high court, the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha, has claimed that the state government’s take-over of the Secondary Board High School (SBHS) in Cuttack “is a step for further improvement of standards and facilities of the premier institution”. The affidavit was filed in reply to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking intervention against the takeover of SBHS from January 1, 2024. Sujogya Kumar Samantaray, an ex-student of SBHS filed the PIL. Advocate Akshaya Kumar Pandey is representing the petitioner. SBHS was a model school set up by the BSE in 1959 as a demonstration and experimental school under the Orissa Secondary Education Act, 1958. In the affidavit, Manjulata Mallick, secretary-in-charge of BSE, said, “The process of take-over of SBHS started when the annual financial burden for running it had gone up to nearly Rs 1 crore in 2013. Expenses had increased further over the past decade.” Initially, the BSE oversaw the printing and supply of textbooks of Class VIII, Mallick said, adding, “However, after the state took over the job of printing, publishing, and selling in recent years, the source of income on that account was also reduced.” TNN

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