A sorry state of affairs! School infrastructure development works

GUWAHATI: The tardy progress of school infrastructure development works in the State from the elementary to the higher secondary (HS) level continues to be beyond the acceptable limits.

Construction of toilets for boys and girls, additional classrooms, drinking water facilities, science laboratories, new school buildings, computer rooms, library rooms, art/craft/cultural rooms, etc., have been progressing at a snail's pace.

This sorry state of affairs came to light during the PAB (Project Approval Board) meeting on Samagra Shiksha held in May this year. The meeting was considering the annual work Plan and Budget, 2020-21 for Assam. The PAB had the meeting with the Department of School Education and Literary under the Union Ministry of Education. The PAB meeting also asked the State government to complete the pending works on a priority basis.

At the elementary level, 2,811 schemes for boys' toilets, 1925 schemes for additional classrooms, 285 for separate girls' toilets etc., have not been started as yet.

At the secondary level, none of the 12 new school building schemes taken up from fiscal 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 has been completed as yet. The works of five among them have not even been started. The works of 141 of the 148 additional classrooms taken up in 2017-18 have not been started. While 91 of the 175 additional classrooms taken up in 2013-14 could be completed, none of the 81 additional classrooms taken up in 2019-20 has been started.

Around half of the 2,191 science laboratories taken up from 2010-2020 could be completed. The same is the situation with computer rooms. Only 860 of the 1,803 computer rooms (taken up in 2010-2020) have been completed. Likewise, 845 of the 1,057 library rooms taken up in the past 10 years could be completed.

The situation is no better in the construction of rooms for art/craft/culture, girls and boys toilets, drinking water facilities, teachers' quarters etc at secondary level. At the higher secondary level, none of the nine new school buildings, 63 additional classrooms, 20 art and culture rooms and 32 library rooms (taken up in 2018-19 and 2019-20) has been started. Not a single of the 771 ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and digital initiatives taken up in 2019-20 has been started.

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