Lucknow— Crores are being spent on the construction of the grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, UP. At the same time, in contrast, no-one is concerned about the rundown hostel buildings of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya located just 11 km away from the temple in DabhaSemar. The union government is unable to provide funds for renovation. Children coming from the surrounding rural areas live in the residential facilities on the premises while studying here. However, due to the decrepit conditions of the two hostel buildings of the school, more than a hundred children are being compelled to live all together in one hall. The pathetic arrangements made by the school administration is resulting in a fall the number of students at the school.

When did Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya open?

The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya scheme was started by the late Rajiv Gandhi during his tenure as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989, with the aim of advancing the country's education system. The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas were established in rural areas under the education policy announced in 1986.

Hostel declared unsafe in 2019

The school management informed us that this hostel with a capacity of 400 children was built between 1972 and 1975. It was declared unsafe and unsuitable for use in 2019 by Harcourt Butler Technical University(HBTI) Kanpur and the Civil Engineering Department at Avadh University. Due to this, it was evacuated and a proposal made for demolition. Krishna Kumar Mishra, the principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, DabhaSemar, said that currently there are about 17 rooms in all in these two hostels.

The principal said that on May 25, 2022, talks had been held at the headquarters regarding the problem with the hostels, but no concrete decisions emerged. Arrangements have been made at MP Hall for the children to stay there. He said that appropriate arrangements had been made at the hall, gauze screens had been fixed to the windows so that the children did not face any kind of problem and fans had also been installed. At the same time, leaving aside the matter of the two hostels mentioned above, another hostel is also in dilapidated conditions. This hostel will be fully repaired by 2023.

Number of seats reduced from 80 to 40

The impact on education of not solving the problem of dilapidated hostels was clearly visible this year. For the current academic year, the number of seats at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya were reduced from 80 to 40. Many students who had cherished the dream of studying at this school were left disappointed. The school principal said that Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti has reduced the number of seats due to lack of proper accommodation facilities.

Petition on change.org by former student

Rohit Jaiswal, a former student of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, started a petition on change.org to make people aware of the problems being faced by the students of the school and also to seek help from people to resolve the issue. So far 6,577 people have signed this petition started by Rohit.

यहाँ हिन्दी में भी पढ़ें– राम मंदिर के लिए करोड़ों खर्च, 11 किमी दूर जवाहर नवोदय विद्यालय के जर्जर भवनों के जीर्णोद्धार के लिए फंड नहीं!

[Story Translated By Lotika Singha]