HYDERABAD: Representatives of Hyderabad Printing Press Association have demanded the Sindh government revoke 2020-21 policy for the printing of class 10 textbooks and award contracts to small printing press owners for publication of books.

Abdul Mateen Shaikh, Mohammad Anis Khan, Mohammad Ali Khan and others said at a joint press conference at the press club on Monday that under a “conspiracy, multi-billionaires” who owned large printing presses were being awarded contracts for printing of textbooks but it would in the end inflict losses on the Sindh government.

Recently, small presses’ tender forms were not accepted at DJ Science College camp office in Karachi on Nov 29 while only “favourites” were allowed to submit their tender documents, they said.

They said that recent tender for textbooks’ printing that was worth about Rs2bn had been bifurcated into financial and technical, the tendering for printing had been divided into 10 parts and the tenders had been categorised into 32 parts on the pretext of ‘package’ which in fact served only to keep small printing press owners out of the contracts.

They feared this novel policy of printing of 10th grade books was meant to enable corruption of millions of rupees and appealed to National Accountability Bureau chairman and Sindh chief minister to take its notice and put a stop to corruption.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2019