The Hindu 15.02.2013
Noon meal centres lack maintenance
Karthik Madhavan

Needs attention:Students of the Corporation Elementary School at
Rathinapuri have food on the verandah as they do not have a dining hall.
—PHOTO: S. SIVA SARAVANAN.
At the Coimbatore Corporation’s Higher Secondary School
at Rathinapuri, stands a kitchen where the earthen oven is in a bad
shape. The bricks that make up the oven are completely damaged in that
what remains at present are broken bricks levelled by accumulated ash.
To
help the noon meal worker cook noon meal without much of a trouble the
local people with support from the Councillor have sponsored an iron
tripod.
Complementing the damaged oven are floors
with cracks and rat holes, broken asbestos roof that leaks during rain
and damaged shelf, the support wall of which hangs without support at
the base. It is in such situation that the noon meal worker there cooks
lunch for 250 boys and girls, spending more than three hours every
working day morning.
The situation at the noon meal
centre at the Corporation’s Elementary School, which is behind the
Higher Secondary School, is no different. The soot-filled walls mirror
the condition in which she works.
Here too the damaged floor and leaky roof complement the earthen oven. The rat hole is present here as well.
To
protect the groceries from rain and rats, the noon meal staff at both
the schools have moved them to safe locations – at a classroom at the
elementary school and at an enclosure beneath the stairs at the higher
secondary school.
This has been the condition for
over two years now at the higher secondary school and a little more than
that at the elementary school. At the latter, around 150 students have
noon meal.
At the elementary school, the students do
not have a place to have food. They are forced to use the verandah. A.
Mohanraj, president, Parent-Teachers’ Association, says that the
students suffer from the dust kicked up by students playing on the
playground.
At the higher secondary school there is
no lab for Class X students. The absence of the lab has been there for
the last two years after the State Government introduced practical
examination for the students.
The water treatment units to supply purified, safe drinking water are also under repair.
The
area Councillor – Ward 49’s Meena Loganathan – says that she has spoken
about the poor kitchens at many a Council meeting in the last two years
but nothing much has been done.
She sought inclusion
of the works to be carried out in the schools by presenting a wish list
in the run up to the Corporation Budget last year. This year also she
has done the same. “Both the lists are identical as no work has taken
place last year.”
Sources in the Corporation say that they will consider the list and improve facilities in the school.