Finally, navodaya schools to be renovated

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 23

The Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti has sanctioned special maintenance and repair works in various Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas of the state.

The decision was taken by the apex body after The Tribune carried two stories in its edition in April 2017 and January 2019 to highlight the dilapidated condition of the school buildings across J&K.

A team of the NITI Aayog, during its visit to the schools in J&K, had found that fund allocation to the institutions in Samba district was both inadequate and untimely. The team observed that a major problem was paucity of funds, maintenance and restoration of buildings.

Sources said the samiti had adopted a systematic approach to execute special repair works so that projects related to buildings were executed first and works of lesser priority were done at the last.

They said the idea behind taking up such major repairs was to ensure that the life of vidyalaya buildings in the state was further extended for at least 15 years.

The priority of works to be executed in buildings will be looking into structural damages, electrical repairs, seepage in buildings, water-proofing treatment, toilet repairs, etc.

“The maintenance and repair work of vidyalaya buildings in the state has finally begun. The work is going on at all schools. The priority is maintenance and repair of those buildings which were declared unsafe by the team,” a school official said.

He said construction of four new Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas was also under progress at Ganderbal, Poonch, Kargil and Shopian. There are 19 such vidyalayas in the state, including11 in Jammu division and eight in Kashmir division.