Nagpur: Despite guidelines issued by the Education Department, the alleged extortion of parents by private schools in the Second Capital of the State is flourishing in full swing. In the latest incident, Godhani based Podar International School has come up with a very unique way to violate the laws and regulations which prohibits commercial activity by the school authorities or through a vendor at the school premises. Podar International School has been found selling uniforms, books and other school supplies through their own websites known as ‘Shop for Schools’ aka SFS.
The school has been found pitching discounts up to 20%, providing multiple payment options e.g. Credit Card, Debit Card, Net Banking, and also offering books and uniforms of EMIs.
As per the RTE law schools cannot directly or indirectly get involved in any commercial practices such as selling books uniforms or school supplies from their premises or through a vendor selling the same from the school premises. However, in order to make money Podar school group is sending notices to the parents of the students recommending the parents to buy School uniforms books and school supplies from the website “Shop for Schools” so as to evade any legal action by the RTE for promoting commercial activities at their school premises. The website is run by the Podar school group itself.
What is surprising is that the website sells school supplies uniform and books only pertaining to Podar school. This definitely proves that the website is owned by Podar school group and in order to fool the RTE and the law they have come up with unique way of cheating both the parents and the laws by promoting this website that sells only Podar related school supplies.
RTE Rules, 2010 read with Rules 14(B) and 19.1(II) of the Affiliation Bye-laws of the Board which prohibits any commercial activity in School premises.
