Apex Court Seeks Affidavits From Chief Secretaries For Fixing Time Limit
New Delhi: After ensuring drinking water in all government schools by fixing October 15 as the deadline, the Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday took the next step by asking the states and Union territories to fix a time period within which boys and girls would get separate toilet facilities.
A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma did a roll call of the states and UTs about drinking water facility in government schools and complimented states which have achieved cent per cent target. Those who passed with flying colours, sadly after 64 years of independence, were the BJP and non-Congress ruled Bihar, Gujarat, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Congress-ruled Maharashtra too joined the NDA states in providing water in every school.
But, BJP-ruled Karantaka, BSP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana and Rajasthan were asked by the bench to provide drinking water to students by October 15. West Bengal had provided drinking water in all districts except Darjeeling.
Justices Bhandari and Verma patiently explained to the education secretaries of the erring states the importance of providing drinking water and other infrastructure in schools and suggested that they draw the chief minister's attention. “Without drinking water facility, the schools are as good as closed,” they said.
Justices Bhandari and Verma patiently explained to the education secretaries of the erring states the importance of providing drinking water and other infrastructure in schools and suggested that they draw the chief minister's attention. “Without drinking water facility, the schools are as good as closed,” they said.
The bench said the importance of toilets in schools — separate one for girls — was intrinsic to right to education. “Wherever the schools have separate toilets for the girls, the enrolment is high,” it said and asked the chief secretaries to file an affidavit by October 15 stating the time period within which this facility would be put in place in every government school. The proceedings came on a PIL filed by Environmental and Consumer Protection Foundation, which through advocate Ravindra Bana had initially complained about lack of water in government and municipal schools in Delhi.
Senior advocate R K Khanna informed the bench that every government and municipal school in Delhi now has water, electricity and toilet facility.
Time of India | Hyderabad | 24th September, 2011 | Page 15
No comments:
Post a Comment