Gurugram: Haryana government has ordered the demolition of 2,814 condemned school buildings and rooms across the state, weeks after the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP’s) ‘School Theek Karo’ campaign spotlighted the condition of public schools in the state.
“The government has identified 2,814 unsafe structures in government schools across Haryana. Some of these are entire buildings, and in many cases it is just one or two rooms that need to come down. The process of demolition has now been ordered to be completed on a fixed timeline,” a Haryana School Education Department official told The Print.
According to officials aware of the matter, the Haryana School Education Project Council’s state project director held a video conference with all additional deputy commissioners, district education officers and district elementary education officers last week ahead of a high-level review meeting expected to be chaired by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini.
Officers have been told to complete physical verification, formal condemnation and demolition of the identified buildings by 30 September.
Officials who delay the process or fail to utilise sanctioned budgets will face action, the department has warned.
No child will be allowed to sit in a building that has been declared unsafe or condemned, officers said. Until new structures come up, students are to be shifted to nearby government schools or other government buildings that are safe.
The government also plans to replace the demolished structures with multi-storey “vertical” school buildings, officers said, a move aimed at freeing up land for playgrounds.
To speed up the process, district-level committees headed by the additional deputy commissioner have been empowered to declare dilapidated rooms “condemned” and auction the debris on their own, without seeking separate clearance from senior officers each time, officials said.
The official quoted above clarified that in most cases, it is not the entire school building that needs demolition, but a few old and run-down rooms.
“In a large number of cases, new rooms were constructed over the years on empty space available in the schools while old rooms were not pulled down. Now, such rooms are in completely dilapidated condition and need to be pulled down for the safety of children,” said the official.
He said that waterlogging is another problem the department flagged during the review. Officers said 647 schools face seasonal waterlogging and 53 schools have a permanent waterlogging problem.
District education officers have been asked to prepare fresh budget estimates for earth-filling material and send them to senior departmental officials so that separate funds can be sanctioned by the government.
Abhita Dwija, state spokesperson of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), who has been associated with the CJP’s ‘School Theek Karo’ campaign in Haryana, told The Print that the BJP has been in power in the state since 2014 but failed to take meaningful steps to improve public school infrastructure. She asked why the government acted only after the CJP began highlighting the issue, and why it took so many years to act on school infrastructure.
Dwija also alleged that after she took part in a protest at Jantar Mantar and participated in the schools campaign, CID officials visited her home and sought information, including details about relatives in government jobs. She said she was raising the issue because citizens engaging in peaceful democratic protest should not face surveillance in response.
The Print has reached out to the Principal Secretary of the Haryana School Education Department, Vijay Singh Dahiya, by phone and SMS for his response to the allegation. This story will be updated if a response is received.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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