Sixteen Amrita Vidyalayams across various regions of the country bagged the National School Sanitation Awards 2012. The schools featured among the best 100 CBSE schools in the country were selected for the award on the basis of sanitation rating introduced by the CBSE in collaboration with Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Urban Development and GIZ.
Union Human Resource Development Minister M M Pallam Raju presented the awards to school principals at a function held in Delhi on Wednesday. The Amrita Vidyalayams are being managed by the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission Trust in Kerala. Among the 16 Amrita Vidyalayams which received the awards included schools at Thalassery, Palakkad, Mananthavady, Pulpally, Pathanamthitta, Pandalam, Tiruvalla, Ernakulam, Ottappalam, Koyilandy, Secunderabad, Kolkata, New Delhi, Navi Mumbai, Durgapur, and Ahmedabad.
The National School Sanitation Ratings is presented on an annual basis for those schools which have been rated online for sanitation and taken noteworthy steps towards betterment of the sanitation scenario in their schools in varied ways. There are over 10,200 CBSE Schools in India of which nearly 1,500 are in Kerala. Amrita Vidyalayams won 10 out of 19 awards conferred on schools in Kerala.
Awards were given for awareness generation leading to behavioural change through students and community mobilisation, technical innovation and interventions, and creation and conservation of green spaces.