WATCH VIDEO | Toilet serves as principal's office in MP school
BHOPAL: In what could render a jolt to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mission of open defecation free (ODF) India, the boys toilet at a government school in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh is serving as the makeshift office of the principal.
Further, photographs of famous personalities, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adorn the walls of the office.
Watch Video: In BJP ruled MP, a school toilet serves as principal’s office having beaming picture of PM Modi
While principal Manish Mishra uses the boys toilet of the Government Higher Secondary School (for students of classes IX and X) at Pahari village in Ghansor block of Seoni district (350 km from Bhopal) to carry out his functions, the boys use the wide open spaces outside for their bodily functions.
In a further irony, tribal-dominated Seoni district falls in the Mandla constituency of Union minister of state for health and family welfare Faggan Singh Kulaste.
As a saving grace, the school of 300 students has a separate toilet for girls.
Absence of a toilet apart, the school has no playground. Also, due to space constraints the school laboratory also houses the library and temporary staff room.
Principal Manish Mishra admits that his occupancy of the toilet is constraining the boys to do their business out in the open. “The school building was handed over to us in 2014-15. We have to run two sections each for class IX and class X, but there are only three classrooms. So we converted the principal’s office into the fourth classroom, leaving us with no option but to use the boys toilet for my office,” Mishra said Monday.
When asked about the school by reporters, minister Faggan Singh Kulaste blamed the principal for the mess. “The principal is the head of the school and must manage things properly. He’s a stupid person against whom action will definitely be initiated,” said Kulaste.
The minister even advised local reporters not to ask such trivial questions.