By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: One Nishi Das has alleged that a city-based girls’ school has sold six Bengali books for Rs360 to his two daughters who are students of the school by blackening the MRP. The guardian who is an employee of a city based vernacular daily said that his daughters are students of Class VI and VII in Laban Bengali Girls’ HS School (LBGHSS).
“I have seen that the area where the MRP rate is mentioned is blackened and there is no mention of any rate in the books,” he said.
He also said that the school principal threatened his daughters that she would issue them Transfer Certificates (TC) if their father does not visit the school.
However, the principal of LBGHSS said that she has to source the Bengali books from College Street, Kolkata since they are not available in Shillong. “I go on my own to Kolkata and choose these books for the students of Class V to VIII so that they can learn good Bengali. We have a certain publisher there who sends us these books through courier,” said the principal.
The principal further clarified that these two students were issued the books recently and the price that they paid includes the courier charges. On the blackened MRP area on these books the principal said, “The Kolkata publisher told me this time that they will color the MRP area in these books and put in place a sticker including the courier charges so that there remains no confusion when these are issued to students. I differed with the proposal and told him that I will explain the parents about the courier charges that they have to pay with the book price. This blackened MRP area was actually done by the Kolkata publisher when he proposed the sticker idea and that remained.”
The principal also vehemently denied that she ever threatened the two students with TC rather she told the students that if their father does not come to the school then he will not understand as to how the rates of the 6 books has arrived at.
“We called the students and found that the books have been taken away by their guardian. We explained the students as to how the figure for the 6 books came to Rs360 so that they can go back and explain their father, since he was not turning up in the school despite our repeated pleas,” she said.