Pune: The city-based State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET), popularly known as Balchitravani, set up by the Maharashtra government in 1984 to bolster children’s education, and which remained a fixture in Pune’s educational fabric for more than three decades,shut down on Wednesday after the current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government claimed it had no funds to support it.
All 50 employees of the now defunct institute were officially relieved of their duties. The institute will be absorbed by Balbharati as part of its e-learning arm.
A few months back, the State Education government in a government resolution (GR) had announced its intention of shutting down the institute on the grounds of lack of funds for its daily upkeep and expenditure and that the body had less than 50 employees.
Not telecast by DD
“The programmes created by Balchitravani are not telecast on Doordarshan anymore... so there is no point in being emotional over a body or institute long past its utility. For Balchitravani to survive, one should look at ways and means to regenerate it to cater to the current educational needs and demands of children keeping in mind the advances in technology,” Education Minister Vinod Tawde had said last year, hinting at the government’s decision to wind up Balchitravani.
The Balchitravani building is sited in the leafy environs near Pune’s scenic Hanuman Hill. It was set up in February 1984 in Mumbai by the then Congress-led government as part of it’s ‘INSAT for Education’ project. The INSAT project took off in October 1983 with the transmission of educational television programmes for children in the 5 to 11 age group.
Children’s education
‘Balchitravani’ was a mainstay in disseminating children’s education with its vibrant audio-video programmes designed to demystify lessons perceived as too complex.
In 1986, the SIET was shifted from Mumbai to Pune and renamed ‘Balchitravani’ in November 1988.
The institute hit a roadblock a few years back after Doordarshan began charging fees to broadcast its programmes, compelling the institute to discontinue them.
It saw a brief revival in 2013 after the UPA government directed Balchitravani to design DVDs to simplify difficult lessons from Classes I to X in all languages. Later, the institute received a further funding of ₹Rs. 40 lakh to create educational films, jingles and ads on the Right to Education Act.
In November 2013, the institute embarked upon an elaborate project to develop virtual classrooms and audio-visual textbook lessons on a specially-designed web portal for Classes I to XII of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education.
