UMERKOTE: Imagine school students eating their mid-day meals out in the open, sharing space with pigs scavenging nearby. Sounds revolting, but this is a routine affair for students of Government Higher Primary School at Badabarli village in Nabarangpur’s Papdahandi block.
At least 122 students from Classes I to VIII have to trek over one and a half km daily through forested hilly terrain to their school kitchen. There, they eat their noon meals in unhygienic surroundings. Badabarli is situated in a remote and inaccessible area.
Last year, the school was shifted to a new building, though incomplete, as the old one was in a dilapidated condition. The school is operating from a single classroom as construction of other rooms is yet to be completed. As construction work in the new building moves at a snail’s pace, the school kitchen continues to run from the old building which is one and a half km away. That’s where the mid-day meal is served.
If that is not bad enough, the lone classroom in the new building doubles up as a godown too. Students attend classes alongside stacks of sacks full of mid-day meal rations which eat up most of the space in the room. Locals say they approached the education officials in this regard several times in the past but a kitchen is yet to be constructed in the new school building.
Ritika Harijan, a resident of Badabarli, said, “The State government is spending crores of rupees on providing smart classrooms, laboratories and libraries in many schools. But students of Badabarli school are deprived of basic amenities. Despite our repeated missives, the plight of the school remains the same.”
Anup Sahu, one of the five teachers posted in the school, also reiterated the villagers’ claims. “The school management committee has requested the block officials of Papdahandi several times to provide a kitchen in the new school building as students have to walk long distances to have their meals,” he said.
Contacted, additional block education officer (BEO) of Papadahandi Balak Das Randhari said the administration is aware of the situation in the school. “We are planning to serve mid-day meals on the premises of the new school soon,” the BEO claimed.