Kakinada, June 19: The district administration may declare holidays for all government schools till the prevailing heat wave conditions subside if the Chief Minister gives consent to the proposal made by Amalapuram MP G.V. Harsha Kumar and Anaparthi MLA N. Sesha Reddy at the Zilla Parishad general body meeting held here on Thursday.
Since a positive decision cannot be taken exclusively for East Godavari district when many other districts are bearing the brunt of summer, the ZP members were asked by Rural Water Supply Minister P. Viswaroop to pass a resolution to that effect so that he could support their case before the Chief Minister and the School Education Minister.
Raising the topic during review on education, Mr. Sesha Reddy said children were unable to bear the oppressive heat while going to schools and coming back. If the schools were to remain open, children might suffer sunstroke which could endanger their lives. It would be, therefore, safe to close the schools for a few days and adjust the academic calendar accordingly.
Plea to Minister
Agreeing with the MLA’s opinion, Mr. Harsha Kumar and others appealed to the RWS Minister and the Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi to save the children from the peak summer days. They said the ‘Badi baata’ programme could be postponed in case the Chief Minister conceded the members’ plea (for holidays to schools).
Later, Mr. Harsha Kumar sought to know from the Collector whether steps were taken to regulate private schools as per the instructions given by the Chief Minister recently and complained that several corporate schools and colleges hiked fee by cent per cent in the absence of any control.
Mr. Dwivedi replied that a committee would be formed under the chairmanship of the Joint Collector to look into the entire gamut of issues. The private schools and colleges would be asked to furnish information on the resolutions made by their governing bodies on the fee structure and facilities being provided to students. It was a statutory obligation for the private institutions to have governing bodies.
Whether reservations were being implemented in such institutions would also be inquired.
Water supply
The RWS Minister said Rs. 350 to Rs. 400 crores was necessary to supply protected drinking water to all habitations in the district. It includes an estimated Rs. 227 crores for meeting the requirement of problematic villages between Peddapuram and Tuni.
Zilla Parishad Chairman Ch. Venugopala Krishna, Rajya Sabha member T. Ratnabai, MLAs — Raja Ashok Babu, Rapaka Vara Prasad, Ponnada Satish Kumar, T.V. Narasimham, Pamula Rajeswari Devi, Chandana Ramesh, Parvata Satyanarayana Murthy, Vegulla Jogeswara Rao, Vanga Geeta, K. Kannababu, Bandaru Satyananda Rao and Pantam Gandhi Mohan, MLCs – K.V.V. Satyanarayana Raju, George Victor and others participated.
–Agencies