KARACHI, Sept 3: The Sindh ombudsman has advised the Sindh education minister to institute a fresh inquiry into alleged irregularities in the purchase of paper and delay in the supply of textbooks to schools.

Talking to Dawn on Friday, the secretary of the provincial ombudsman secretariat, Khalid Mahmood Soomro, said the minister had been informed that there was reportedly severe mal administration which had been resulting in a loss of millions of rupees to the Sindh Textbook Board which needed to be investigated.

The Ombudsman has suggested that the whole issue be probed again through some very senior officer of impeachable reputation and integrity, he added. Almost the whole lot of students of government schools in the province remained without new textbooks on and after the commencement of the new academic session this year.

The worst sufferers were the 2.8 million students of government primary schools who could not get books before the summer vacations. In the meantime, the ombudsman on a complaint, has asked the secretary of the provincial education department not to allow the acting chairman, an additional secretary of the department, to allocate textbooks for the 2005-2006 session.

The secretary of the ombudsman office said that the ombudsman had issued immediate orders to the education secretary to stop the acting chairman of the STB from allocating textbooks before schedule for the next academic session.

The additional secretary, Anwar Ahmed Zai, who is holding three posts at a time, will reach the age of super annuation on Sept 17. The Ombudsman has also urged the department to ensure that there is a transparency in the entire process of purchase of paper in the STB and that every aspect of good-governance is maintained.

When contacted, the acting chairman of the STB, Anwar Ahmed Zai, said that some parameters for allocation of books to different publishers were finalized at a meeting of the board of governors of the textbook board on Friday.

"We have started the exercise related to publication of school textbooks in advance, keeping in view of the STB's failure to bring out the books in time, he said, adding "this is not for the first time that allocations were being made in August or September.

Giving details of the BOG meeting, he said that it had been decided that books would be got published latest by Feb 28, and these would be made available to district governments in March for onwards distribution among the primary school students.

He said that newly registered publishers would also be considered for allocation of printing job. He mentioned that private publishers would be given the job in view of their past performance in the field and services they provided to the board in the past.

He informed further that the BOG had proposed to the competent authority of the board to either dispose of the board's own printing press or lease it out to some private party since at present it was non-operational and getting rusty.