Mumbai: Students and teachers of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) schools will now be relieved as repair works will be conducted at ward levels instead of applying for the prolonged tendering process. A budget of Rs 2 crore has been allotted for two years for minor repair works for each zone.
There are a total of 2,596 BMC schools which have been categorised in seven zones depending on area and locality of different wards of the city. Now if there is any minor infrastructure damage witnessed in any of these civic-run school, the principal of the school can inform the concerned education officer of that ward. Minor repair works will include repairing a crack in the ceiling, changing electric light bulbs, changing broken window panes or even plumbing and fixing desks and benches.
Till now, principals of schools had to apply to the BMC School Infrastructure Cell (SIC) which manages construction, repair and maintenance work of school buildings. But this application would take time as it involved a tendering process to appoint an agency for execution of repair work. Sheetal Mhatre, a member of BMC education committee, said, “Despite several complaints sometimes the repair work was not undertaken in various schools. Students and teachers had to suffer and continue to function in an unsafe infrastructure due to the prolonged tendering process.”
Engineers in these wards have been informed to act immediately when they receive a complaint from any school of their area. Mangesh Satamkar, Chairman of BMC Education Committee, said, “We have allotted funds for this work and our engineers of different wards are aware about their plan of action. We aim to ensure a safe environment for our students and teachers so we will avoid any kind of delay in maintenance work.”
This budget will be used to manage minor repair works wherein the major repair works like painting, construction of toilets or classrooms, installing electric supply lines will be done as per tendering process at the SIC. Milind Sawant, Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Education), said, “This provision is only for minor works which can be done immediately and there should not be a need for a tendering process. While all of the major repair works will be done in the same method through the SIC.The education officer will assign ward level Assistant Engineer (AE) of maintenance to complete these small scale repair works on a priority basis.”
