SILCHAR, Oct 21 - At a time when the Union Government is vigorously campaigning to popularise Swachh Bharat�mission, the pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, about 900 students of the century old Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Silchar have just one toilet for their use.
Established in 1863, students representing the school located on the edge of Barak river at Sadarghat have earned laurels in both academic and socio-cultural domain. But one grey area bothering the routine chores of the students, especially girls from the higher secondary section has been the lack of sufficient toilets to relieve themselves.
�Even as there are mandatory provisions for separate toilets for boys and girls in government schools under the�Swachh Vidyalaya programme, there has been very little done here. We have recently renovated the old and solitary toilet for the students,� Parveen Sultana Laskar, the principal in-charge of the school told�The Assam Tribune.��
On the other hand, Prof Bibhash Deb, president of the school management committee informed that an appeal was made to the Silchar Municipal Board for construction of a separate toilet for the girl students and said that that they are planning to seek assistance from ONGC, Cachar in this regard.��
�The school which bears a rich legacy over the past 150 years is plagued with a plethora of problems. Besides lack of sufficient toilets, the school is reeling under acute shortage of teachers and non teaching staff. Out of sanctioned 73 posts, there should be 32 assistant teachers. But only 16 assistant teachers are available and there is no clerical staff available in the school at present,� Prof Deb maintained.
Meanwhile, NN Tagore, chairman of Silchar Municipal Board has said that since the civic board has no specific funds for construction of public toilets, the school management should approach other agencies dealing with such noble efforts.