BANGALORE: It is summer vacation for members of the Standing Committee on Education in the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) Council. Call it an excitement over improved performance of BMP schools in SSLC examination (pass percentage has gone up from 37 to 39.65 per cent) or call it a mere outing.

Undeterred by public criticism over the proposed tour by the city fathers last year, members of the education committee are set to fly on May 1.

Neither the BMP Council nor the State Government has permitted the tour. "The tour has been finalised pending approval from the Council and the Government," sources in the BMP told The Hindu on Thursday.

The BMP is spending Rs. 47,943 on air travel of each of the 10 members. The team comprises the Chairperson of the Education Committee, G. Amudha Gopichander, members N. Munireddy, M. Udayshankar, C. Munikrishna and A.H. Basavaraju.

The ruling party leader in the BMP Council, B.T. Sreenivasa Murthy, L.A. Jayalakshmi from the Town Planning and Development Committee, and Ashwathamma from the Appeals Committee besides the BMP Education Officer, Nischal Prakash, and the Private Secretary to the Education Committee Chairperson, Linganna, are accompanying the team.

Two of the Education Committee members — A. Rajendra Rao and C. Dundegowda — have decided to stay back because of ill health.

Although it is called a "study tour", the agenda is not known. It is learnt that some of the corporators are taking their family along with them, sources said.

Last year, the proposed study tour by 64 members of the eight standing committees was stalled following criticism from the public and the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). It was the "diktat" of the KPCC President, B. Janardhan Poojary, that the tour should be dropped and it happened. But then the Council had approved that tour and the file had been forwarded to the Government.

This time the programme is based on a resolution adopted at the Education Committee. Just as the corporators were determined to go on tour last year, this time too the members are keen.

"The file pertaining to the tour has not been tabled in the Council, though it has met thrice in one month. This shows the members want it to be a clandestine affair," the sources added.

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