In 2014, there are still schools in the national Capital where children are forced to relieve themselves in the open, forced to go thirsty for hours due to lack of clean water and don’t have enough teachers.
The sorry state of primary schools was highlighted during surprise inspections of two South Delhi Municipal Corporation schools by Deputy Mayor and Congress councillor Praveen Rana on Monday.
At a girls’ school in Chattarpur, Mr. Rana said there was no cleaning staff, leaving the classrooms and toilets filthy.
“There were no safai karamcharis at all. Most classrooms did not have desks, forcing the children to sit on the filthy floor,” said Mr. Rana.
Drinking water filtration units were displayed proudly on classroom walls. But even six months after being procured, the RO units have not been connected to water pipelines. A drinking water tank was full of dirt and leaves, said Mr. Rana, adding that mosquitoes were breeding in the vicinity.
Shockingly, this was a new building, the Deputy Mayor said. The situation was so dire that Mr. Rana was forced to pick up garbage himself.
At another school in Aali village, the toilets were so dirty that students were left with no options.
“It pains me to say this, but I saw children relieving themselves in the open.”
The school had no sanitation workers, no security guard and even no Principal, apart from 12 vacancies for teachers. Students told Mr. Rana that they preferred bringing their own lunch instead of eating the mid-day meal offered.
He also inspected the facilities of an ISKCON-run kitchen that supplies mid-day meals to schools around Aali. He said the cooking oil being used had no manufacturing or expiry date, leading him to believe that they may be past the use-by date.
“The kitchen was using domestic gas cylinders instead of commercial ones. The puris had been fried in oil that had become black due to multiple use,” he said.
After the findings of Monday’s inspections, the Deputy Mayor will submit a report to the Corporation on Tuesday and ask that action be taken against those responsible.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing school students on Teachers’ Day on September 5, Mr. Rana said the BJP-led Corporation should pay attention to its education services.
“Mr. Modi says first toilets, then temples. Here, the BJP leadership can’t even maintain the existing toilets in municipal schools, forget about making new ones.”
