No toilets for Bangaru Tallis

Dattatreya takes a dig at CM Kiran over plight of school sanitation

Rise in dropouts among SC/ST, minorities & BC students, mainly girls; One of best states 10 years ago, AP now being compared to Bihar.

STINKING APATHY

• No toilets for girls in 53,801 schools
• No toilets at all in 35,326 schools
• Where they are, most toilets unusable
• Just Rs 417 a month for maintenance is too meagre

Hyderabad: BJP national vice-president Bandaru Dattatreya on Sunday charged the Congress government with showing complete lack of sensitivity towards non-availability of toilets in government schools across the State.

In his 76th Open Letter to Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Dattatreya said Andhra Pradesh is now on a par with Bihar State in as regards water and sanitation facilities in schools. Of around 76,000 government schools in the State, almost 47,000 do not have any toilets or drinking water. In a two-page letter addressed to Kiran Reddy, the senior BJP leader appealed to the CM to set his personal agenda and futile political exercises aside, and concentrate on solving problems of students from poorer sections. Andhra Pradesh was considered one of the best states 10 years back. The Congress government should be ashamed that such a developed State was on a par with Bihar in the matter of providing sanitation and drinking water facilities in schools, he rued.

"The State Government identifies any structure as toilet. But in reality, they are not usable because of lack of maintenance or lack of water. Students shudder to enter these places, but they no option," he said. As per the website of the state government-run Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), there are no toilet facilities for girls in 53,801 primary, upper primary and higher secondary schools in the state. In another 35,326 schools, there was no toilet facility at all, Dattatreya stressed in his letter.

Even the Unicef-backed survey conducted by an NGO in 2010-11 highlighted the dismal situation in AP schools. The report stated that only 42.6 percent of the government schools have toilet facilities and most of them were not usable, he pointed out.

According to the BJP senior leader, lack of toilets had resulted in increase in number of dropouts of SC, ST, minorities and BC students especially girls in the state.

If this was the situation at the ground-level, Kiran Reddy-led government was making tall claims about welfare of girl child through its pet scheme ‘Bangaru Talli,’ Dattatreya fumed.

"It is a matter of laughing stock, where your government is claiming that the welfare of the girl child is being taken care of by announcing schemes such as Bangaru Talli for the overall development, which is your pet scheme. Is it possible for any individual without education to enhance his/herself? There are numerous girls dropping out of schools due to non-availability of toilets and water," he said.

The Congress government is not paying heed even to the Supreme Court directive to ensure sanitation and drinking water facilities in schools, he lamented. The Supreme Court had directed the States to provide water and sanitation facility in all schools by the end of November 2011, directing all the governments to take immediate steps regarding this and file their compliance report before the deadline fixed by it. Andhra Pradesh is far from compliance with the Supreme Court directive, Dattatreya said.

The former union minister also flayed the government for deciding a bare minimum wage of Rs 5,000 per annum to a worker for maintaining proper sanitation conditions in schools. This comes to Rs 417 per month and hence nobody was coming forward to do these duties, he said.

Hans impact

The Hans India has been publishing a series of reports about the lack of toilets in government schools across the state. There have been widespread reactions to the government’s apathy to such an important issue that affects large- scale dropouts among girls