Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has streamlined the process of providing educational supplies to municipal school students by eliminating the pre-estimation tendering process.

Starting next week, funds for purchasing educational materials will be directly deposited into students' bank accounts through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system, benefiting 103,000 students.

Traditionally, the PMC issued tenders to purchase educational supplies for its school students. However, these tenders often became hotspots for corruption, benefiting education board officials, municipal councilors, and officers rather than the students. As a result, students received low-quality supplies and uniforms.

To combat this issue, the PMC stopped purchasing uniforms, sweaters, shoes, bags, notebooks, pencils, and pens in 2017. Instead, funds for these items were directly transferred to the bank accounts of students or their parents. While this move reduced corruption, the funds often arrived as late as November or December, long after the school year had started.

In an effort to expedite the process, the administration previously requested market estimates to set prices, which took three to four months.

This year, the PMC decided to forgo this step and instead increased last year's amount by 10 per cent. As a result, funds ranging from ₹2,000 to ₹6,000, depending on the class, will be directly deposited into the students' accounts.

Sunanda Wakhare, an administrative officer in the education department, said, "This year, ₹50.53 crore will be distributed via DBT to 103,000 students. Currently, student information, including bank account numbers, is being entered into the system.

By next week, the funds will start being deposited into the students' bank accounts."