Delhi: At this school, 2 toilets for 2,600 students, ground full of garbage

On Monday, the Delhi High Court rapped the Delhi government over the condition of this school, asking them to file a status report within 10 days. The court was hearing a plea filed by NGO Social Jurist.

On Tuesday, when The Indian Express visited Alok Punj Senior Secondary School in Karawal Nagar, students were sitting in the corridor to study as there is no window in their classroom. The school runs in double shifts and caters to 2,600 children — 1,300 girls in the morning and an equal number of boys in the evening.

Established in 1976, the school was taken over by the government in 1982. Earlier, it was run by a society and received 95% funds from the government. However, since 1995, the school has been running completely on government funding.

But staff say the financial crisis is such that teachers have to contribute to change bulbs in classrooms. A student, who has been studying at the school since he was in Class VI, said, “Nothing has changed. We don’t even have basic facilities like proper electricity supply in the classroom.” He currently studies in Class X.

Drinking water taps are broken, and the school does not have a Delhi Jal Board (DJB) water connection. There are just two functional toilets on the terrace, which have no roof. The toilets on the ground floor are locked. These two toilets and 200 desks were provided only in December last year by the Delhi government, following a complaint from Ashok Aggarwal of Social Jurist. With no maintenance undertaken in a long time, one of the teachers said, “The government will only listen when the roof comes down and some students get injured.”

There is also a shortage of teachers at the school. Of the 91 sanctioned posts, 72 are lying vacant. The school’s vice-principal, Naresh Pal, told The Indian Express, “We have written to the government several times, but the files only keep piling up.”

The situation at the school got worse a few weeks ago when the PWD broke down one of the boundary walls. The school claims to have no knowledge on why the action was taken. “When PWD broke the wall, we even filed an FIR with the police, but nothing happened,” said Pal.

The writer is an intern with The Indian Express