Friday, June 22, 2018

PMC SPENDS RS 10 LAKH TO BUILD TOILETS IN DEFUNCT SCHOOL

Pune Mirror: Vijay Chauhan: Pune: Friday, June 22, 2018.
However, engineer at Vishrambaugwada ward office justifies that it might be used for warkaris this year
When it was operational, repeated requests for repairs and furniture by Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) Rabindranath Tagore Vidya Niketan School went completely unheeded. Now, after the school was shut down in June last year, the civic body has spent Rs 10 lakh to build five additional toilets on the closed premises.
The school situated in a prime location, near Sinchan Bhavan at Mangalwar Peth, reigned as a prominent institution for three decades. However, as more parents preferred to put their children in English-medium schools, its student numbers dwindled rapidly in the past few years. The PMC education board tried to keep the school functional, however, after three years of struggle, it was decided to pull the shutters and the few remaining students and staff were absorbed by another PMC-run school.
While it was open, the school authorities kept seeking funds from the civic body to repair leakages and purchase much-needed furniture. But no funds were granted. Yet, in January this year, six months after it had been locked up, PMC sanctioned Rs 10 lakh and invited tenders for building five new toilets. The school already had six of them. This is how funds meant for ward development were deployed.
Local resident, Subhash Jadav, told Mirror, “I observed the work going on at the closed campus and found it curious. I did an RTI and found out that the school administration had been demanding funds for repair of leaking roofs in its office, classrooms, toilets and also seeping water-tank. It had also sought money to buy furniture. The school was closed a year ago and suddenly this January they started building toilets here.”
Given that the non-operational school already has toilets, he saw the whole exercise as a corrupt act to grab public funds. “These toilets cannot even be used by the public as they are located inside locked premises,” he pointed out, calling for an in-depth inquiry to get to the bottom of what he calls a clear scam.
Seeking to explain the move, Ashok Zuluk, engineer attached with the Vishrambaugwada ward office concerned, said, “There was a demand from the school for the repairs and the furniture. The provision of funds was made for that. But since the school had shut down, we decided to build these toilets.” Further, in a bid to justify the project, he added, “The school may not be there to use the toilets but they can be used for warkaris during the annual wari procession. In fact, the warkaris may be accommodated in the empty school during their proposed stay in the Peth area this year.”
Another officer, on condition of anonymity, informed, “PMC has a plan to build an e-learning school on the premises, though no time frame has been set for that project. It will require far more space than available in the current facility and the entire building and its ancillary structures will be razed for the new construction at the time.”
All efforts to reach the PMC education officer, Dhananjay Pardeshi, proved futile.