KP NAB’s effort saves over Rs5bn in education dept

PESHAWAR: A remarkable effort by the NAB KP has saved the national exchequer more than Rs5 billion in education department.

Every year the KP province lost approximately Rs2.5 billion by printing free books more than the requirement of the province. 

Due to collaborative efforts of NAB with the provincial government, old book banks have been notified to ensure re-utilization of books for new sessions, which will result in savings of about Rs2.5 billion. With the impetus coming from NAB, recovery of one billion rupees is being initiated by the education department from the delinquent in respect of 27 million extra free textbooks for the period from 2012 to 2016.

Sources disclosed that during an investigation of a case, it was revealed that the education department was sending estimated figures for the printing of free books. The textbook board publishes 10 million books over and above the enrollment, resulting in a loss of Rs2.5 billion to the national exchequer every year.

“The case of textbook board for publishing extra books resulting in loss of public money remained under proceeding since 2018. It was decided to adopt an innovative approach to save the government exchequer billions and develop a sustainable policy that would discourage future pilferages,” the sources said.

Sources said the Director General NAB (KP) Waqar Chohan and his team took the initiative to take the Elementary & Secondary Education Department on board for the recovery and prevention of continuous losses incurred due to incorrect data and estimation.

“Intensive collaboration during a series of meetings took place between both sides and ultimately resulted in a way forward for recovery and saving of billions of rupees in current and forthcoming years. The efforts of NAB in ensuring these savings have been acknowledged by the education department in its recent communication,” an official said.

On the recommendations of NAB, the demand for free textbooks for the next academic session has been made on the present enrollment instead of estimation, and a system of further cross-checking was introduced. This exercise resulted in reduction of 10 million books from the already calculated demand/estimates. This reduction resulted in savings of Rs2.5 billion. The 10 million fewer free textbooks were demanded this year, which will reduce the budget from about Rs11 billion to Rs8 billion, saving about Rs3 billion.

“This was a combined effort. The positive response from the education secretary and staff has been appreciated and a letter of appreciation will be issued to them,” a source of NAB disclosed.

Furthermore, NAB’s proposal to establish old book banks to re-use the previous year’s books after collecting from children resulted in the notification of “Preservation Committees” by the education department. These Preservation Committees will ensure the re-use of books from existing students to newly enrolled students, resulting in savings of approximately Rs2.5 billion each year in the future.

The proposed suggestion of NAB KP to print only the changed portion in the textbook where necessary, instead of the whole book, will also result in considerable savings.