Their construction cost state exchequer crores of rupees. But for past four years more than 800 school buildings are lying abandoned after school education department clubbed the existing schools across the state in 2015. “These buildings have turned into haunted houses and in absence of watch and ward these buildings have suffered damage to the infrastructure as well,” said a senior official of the school education department. Under the program “rationalisation of schools” 2500 schools were merged in Kashmir which had left 800 school buildings, established under erstwhile Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme, unused. At the time of clubbing 1800 schools were functioning from rented accommodation as the government hadn’t constructed requisite infrastructure for them under the SSA scheme. The merger of the schools had resulted in surplus staff of 3553 teachers which were later posted in schools having deficiency of teaching staff. The rationalization was an exercise carried to streamline the disproportionate teacher-student ratio. While clubbing of the schools addressed this problem (disproportionate teacher-student ratio) the government has failed to make better use of these abandoned buildings. An official said each of these school buildings has been constructed at a cost of around Rs 12 lakh to Rs 13 lakh, implying that around Rs 10 crore was spent by government of India for establishment of these school buildings. Some time ago the department had proposed to handover them to Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (JKBOSE) for their use as sub-offices, but the initiative did not find favors with the authorities. “It was also decided to utilize the buildings within the department and shift ZEO offices operating from rented accommodation, to these buildings but that initiative didn’t materialize as well for various reasons,” an official said. Another proposal to start kindergarten classes in these abandoned was shelved midway. Later, the education department’s decision to handover these school buildings to social welfare department didn’t work as the authorities in education department wanted to continue their control over these buildings even after their transfer to the social welfare department. “It was decided that social welfare department will run their Anganwari (ICDS) centres from these buildings. But the initiative hit a roadblock as the education department wanted social welfare to spend funds to carry out repairs of these buildings and at the same time wanted to continue with their control over the structures,” an official said. He said there was a requirement of around Rs 2.50 lakh each for carrying out necessary repairs to each building. Technically, the education department cannot lose the authoritative control over these buildings because the merged schools are reflected as separate schools as per data updated on unified district information of school education (UDISE). “That is the only reason the department is not in position to put these structures to use for any other purpose. If the department will treat them as closed schools then MHRD will stop salary of all teachers recruited under SSA for these schools and stop maintenance grants for these schools as well,” the official said. Director school education Kashmir (DSEK) G N Itoo said the department will shift some of the clubbed schools in these buildings as enrolment of some schools increased during the enrolment drives carried by the directorate in all the districts of the Valley. “Social welfare department refused to take over these buildings as the habitations having ICDS centres far away from the location of these buildings,” he said. He however said there was no such policy with the department to make these buildings functional to save wastage of resources. “But we are hopeful that shifting of some clubbed schools having good enrolment will put these buildings in use again,” he said.
rizwangeelani@gmail.com