Hyderabad, October 22: Till about a year ago, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) had been allocating Rs 4 crore towards the maintenance of toilets in all government schools. But they have stopped the release of funds abruptly. The reason: Global recession.
As a result, there has been no maintenance of sanitation in all 805 government schools in the Twin Cities for more than a year now.
Officials of Hyderabad Collectorate told Expresso that the GHMC used to allocate the amount till a year ago. But it stopped releasing funds subsequently forcing schoolchildren to use badly maintained toilets which, officials say could lead to several diseases. “Nearly 1.3 lakh pupils studying in Government schools are affected,” an official said.
As of now, there are nearly 74 schools, where works are under progress for construction of new school buildings. Because of lack of funds to take up maintenance, district officials, surprisingly, are now mooting the idea of not constructing washrooms in these schools at all! “We have been requesting the GHMC to provide funds but they have their own constraints. The problem is that there is no separate budget allocation for the maintenance of sanitation,” Hyderabad Collector Navin Mittal told Expresso.
The problem is acute especially for girl students, whose strength in most of the schools is either equal or more than boy students. However, officials are expecting the conditions to improve at least by the next academic year, when the Right to Education Act comes into force.
The Right to Education Act makes it mandatory to provide proper toilet facilities in schools. Failing to provide sanitation can enable a student to file a suit in the court against district education officials. The Act was passed in Parliament two months ago and a special budgetary allocation is also expected to be provided.
“Meanwhile, we are also trying our to best to take up temporary measures to address the issue,” added Mittal.
Till last year, district officials had taken up a programme ‘Suvidha’ in all the primary schools keeping in view the girl students, wherein sanitation works would be outsourced.
But the programme was also disbanded because of lack of funds.
–Agencies