TIRUPATI: The schools which did not have basic facilities like doors to bathrooms, are now thanking the government for the second phase of Mana Badi Nadu-Nedu works, which revamped the government schools with modern facilities like western toilets, evoking a positive interest among the students in the Tirupati district.
About 1,079 government schools are being upgraded with modern facilities at a cost of Rs 367.33 crore under the second phase of the Mana Badi Nadu Nedu scheme while the district administration has already spent Rs 156.97 crore and transformed 862 schools, wherein 96 per cent have been completed.
Before the development of the Rajanagaram (Pichatur) MPP School, the school complex welcomed the
students with broken classroom benches, windows, doors, cracked leaking rooftop during rains, a
science lab without materials to carry out science experiments and a playground with bushes.
After the Nadu-Nedu works, the decaying school has been transformed on par when compared to a corporate school with eye-catching and pleasant murals on the school building—both inside and outside—and classrooms welcoming students with all new benches, green chalkboards, mineral water machines and toilets.
Sharing her sheer happiness over the modernisation of the government school infrastructure where her child is studying, a class 5 student, Vamsi’s mother Suhasini said that earlier the school lacked basic amenities, but now the school has separate bathrooms for boys and girls, new study tables, lights and fans.
Tirupati district collector K Venkataramana Reddy said the financial constraints of poor families and the lack of amenities at schools distanced many students from education, but the implementation of Nadu-Nedu helped the authorities reduce the rate of school dropouts in the district.