New chapter on moral character building in Bengal school syllabus: Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata, Sep 5 (IANS) A new chapter on "moral character building" will be introduced in the school syllabus of West Bengal shortly, according to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The announcement comes at a time when the West Bengal government and the state's ruling Trinamool Congress are saddled with the multiple charges of corruption.

She made this announcement while addressing a function to felicitate some teachers from the state on the occasion of the "Teachers Day" on Monday afternoon. State Education minister Bratya Basu was present on that occasion and she asked him to start the preparatory process on this count with immediate effect.

The chief minister also made a significant statement on the occasion when she said that a person is not known by the property he or she owns. "How much money one owns is not the only identity of a person. Always remember the money you own today might perish tomorrow. Whether I will remain honest or not will depend on me only. All fingers are not the same. Just as there are good people in society, there are also bad people. So, for some bad people it would be unfair to malign the entire society," she said.

To recall, since the time Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondal were arrested in connection with teachers' recruitment and cattle smuggling scams respectively, several Trinamool Congress leaders had been facing public wrath and humiliation. Several top Trinamool Congress leaders, including the chief minister, had been insisting in public meetings that it would be unfair to malign the entire party for wrongdoings of some.

Speaking at the teachers' felicitation programme, the chief minister also said that at times even good people adopt the wrong path because of ill-associations or mental depression.

The ongoing imbroglio over the teachers recruitment scam could have been solved much before had there not been constant public interest litigations (PIL) filed in the matter. "These legal hassles are delaying the entire process. I admit there had been some mistakes. But at least we should get a chance to rectify them," the chief minister said.

According to her, the irregularities in the Trinamool Congress regime are coming to limelight because of proper documents and papers. "During the previous Left Front regime, they used to destroy all papers and documents," she alleged.