By: S Ramesh
MYSURU: Over 711 primary and high schools in the district are in poor state as per an internal survey conducted by the education department.
Sources in the department of public instruction told STOI that the local block education officers found 156 toilets in shoddy state in HD Kote taluk, 120 in Mysuru, 119 in Nanjangud, 94 in Hunsur, 87 in Periyapatna, 81 in T Narasipura and 84 in KR Nagar taluk. Some of the schools with high enrolment had requested the department to construct additional toilets for both girls and boys .
Lack of running water coupled with poor maintenance still continues to haunt schoolchildren despite the availability of sufficient funds for construction and maintenance under Swachh Bharath Abhiyan and Samagara Shiskha Abhiyan and other schemes of the government.
According to the survey, 30% of the schools across the district were non-functional mainly due to lack of running water and cleaning arrangements among others. Complaints included lack of hand washing facility, defective construction of toilets, lack of provision for construction of ramp and staircase to help physically challenged students.
Complaints of damaged/overflowed leach pit, toilets were not being cleaned regularly were also very common. As per the survey, in several schools, buckets, cleaning agents and disinfectants were not kept in the toilets, said the sources,
Deputy director of public instruction (DDPI) Panduranga told TOI that instructions have been given to all block education officers of the district as well as headmasters of all schools to repair the damaged toilets. “We have also asked them to submit their requests for new toilets to zilla panchayat through local gram panchayat,” he added.
The demand list for such requirements and construction of new toilets must be submitted to government authorities after discussing the issue at School Development Monitoring Committee (SDMC) members.
Awareness on sanitation
The zilla panchayat has given a special provision to all school authorities for construction, repair, additional and new toilets by the end of this month as part of observing World Toilet Day.
In a bid to raise awareness among public on sanitation issues, the department has also launched week-long awareness drive from November 14 -25 on the theme “Sustainable sanitation and climate change”. During the drive, students will also be sensitised about effective precautions to prevent water-born diseases, the DDPI added.