HYDERABAD: Eleven-year-old Naresh continues to battle for life at an Intensive Care Unit in a private hospital in the city, two days after a roof collapsed at New Century Public School at Kukatpally, killing two of his classmates and injuring four others. The bereaved families are yet be offered any assistance. Naresh’s parents over the last two days have spent a whopping Rs 2.8 lakh in hospital bills. Speaking to Express, Kailash Patel, father of Naresh, said that government officials who had visited him in the hospital had promised that the government will take care of the child’s treatment. However, not a single rupee has trickled out of the state’s coffers. Kailash said that members of his family have lodged a complaint against the school’s management with Kukatpally police on Saturday.
“We don’t have good financial resources to support treatment of my son. So, we have been forced to take help from relatives. The school management harassed our kids for every small issue. The government should take action against school management. The government cannot just escape with announcement of compensation. We request the government for financial help to pay for my son’s treatment,” he said.
N Likhidha, a nine-year-old student from the same school who also got injured in the accident, is also in the ICU of a private hospital. N Phani Kumar, father of Likhidha, who works as a private employee said that his daughter was now slowly recovering but was still in the ICU. There has been no financial help from government for Likhidha’s treatment too and her parents have managed to ensure treatment through health insurance.
New list of schools released, parents unhappy with choices
After the accident in New Century Public School, the school education department decided to shut down the school and provide a list of other schools in nearby areas in which parents of children from New Century Public School can admit their wards. School education department released the list of new schools on Saturday. However, some of the parents are not unhappy with the choice of schools. A Srinivas, one of the parents, said, “The schools in the list are not standard and have poor quality teachers.”
When contacted, Medchal District Education Officer I Vijay Kumari, said, “We issued the list of the schools in surrounding area after conducting a meeting with managements of all schools from the area. If the parents have any objection they can give us a representation and we will solve their problem.”