Lack of basic facilities: Education department ropes in district administration to equip government schools
Srinagar: The school education department has roped in the district administration to equip the government schools across the state with all basic facilities of electricity, toilets and drinking water.
In this regard, the government has constituted district level committees headed by concerned deputy commissioners to achieve 100 percent target of saturation of all these facilities in the government-run educational institutions.
As per the order issued by the school education department, the committees will assess the requirement of facilities in schools and prepare detailed project report(s) (DPR) besides monitoring the works executed by different agencies like public health engineering (PHE), power development department (PDD) and engineering wing of school education department.
“The committees will work out requirement of additional funds for providing electricity, drinking water connections and other facilities to the school,” reads the order.
As per the official figures, around 16597 government schools- 10817 primary schools, 5410 middle schools, 350 high schools and 20 higher secondary schools are without electricity facility.
There are around 23773 government schools in the state out of which 1933-primary schools 1353, middle schools 432, high schools 93 and higher secondary schools 55, are without boys toilets. Also, 1110 government schools- 872 primary schools, 165 middle schools, 38 high schools and 35 higher secondary schools are without toilets for girl students.
“5433 government schools are without any facilities in the state,” the official document reveals.
“The funds for the purpose are already available with the concerned directorates. The requisition of funds recommended by the committee (school wise) will be communicated by the concerned CEO to the concerned director with recommendation for releasing funds to the executive engineers of school education department for execution of works,” reads the order.
This year the education department has initiated an exhaustive exercise to fill up the infrastructural gaps in government schools and provide all basic facilities in these institutions.
All the educational institutions are likely to be provided with a functional toilet, drinking water and electricity facility as well. Ramps and construction of boundary walls will also be constructed in the schools by end of this year.
KV Correspondent
