Edu Dept to repair eight school buildings in F’bad

Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, November 19

The Education Department has taken up the work of construction and repair of the dilapidated buildings of eight government schools in the district.

This has been stated by the department through an affidavit filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in a response to a PIL heard on Monday. The PIL was filed by an advocate associated with a civil rights group.

In the affidavit filed by Mahavir Singh, Principal Secretary, Education Department, Haryana, the court has been told that tenders have been floated for the construction of new building for government schools located at Anangpur, Tigaon and Dayalpur villages on November 14.

The estimated cost for the work is around Rs 10.52 crore. It is admitted that the buildings here are very old and many classrooms are in a dilapidated condition.

The authorities have informed that repair work will soon be taken up in the rest of the five schools located at Indira Nagar, Press Colony, Badkhal and Gonchhi villages.

Two of the schools — government senior secondary school and a government primary school — are located in Indira colony here. It is stated that while repairs would be taken up soon in three schools, one of the school is likely to the shifted elsewhere. The primary school located in Indira Colony has no space for further construction, it is revealed. The budget on the repair of the buildings has been put at around Rs 76 lakh.

Ashok Aggarwal, advocate, had filed the PIL on October 17 charging that due to negligence on part of the department, students had been forced to study in unsafe buildings.

He had submitted photographs and videos of these school buildings based on a survey carried out in August and September.

Claiming that repair or construction has been taken up after the filing of the PIL, Aggarwal said that floating of tenders had been done only four days prior to the hearing of the case on November 18, thus exposing the alleged negligence. The next date of hearing in this matter is on February 2020.