6,000 govt schools lack toilets in Telangana

Hyderabad: While the Telangana government is making grandiose plans to strengthen school education in the State, the problem of lack of toilet facility remains unresolved for the government school students. According to data available with Telangana State School Education department, 6,000 government schools across the State do not have toilet facility.

A senior official of the Education department said a total of 8,315 toilets were required in the 6,000 schools. “Of the total toilets, 5,745 have to be built for boys and 2,570 for girls,” the official added. For construction of toilets, the government has earmarked Rs 103.93 crore and each toilet would be built with Rs 1.25 lakh.

While several other schools have toilets, most of them are dysfunctional due to lack of maintenance grant and water facility. Over the years, these schools were given only Rs 300 per month where they actually require Rs 3,000 per month for maintenance of toilets.

As the grant by the government wasn’t adequate to maintain toilets, several schools with dysfunctional toilets have been put into the list of no toilets schools. “For the first time, we have placed Rs 90 crore in the budget proposal for the maintenance of schools. If approved by the Finance department, each school would at least receive a grant of Rs 30,000 per annum towards the school maintenance,” said a senior official in the office of Commissioner of School Education. The officials of the School Education department hoped that the schools would get toilet facilities before the commencement for next academic year.

By:Yuvraj Akula