Bhubaneswar: Several state government-run schools are deprived of toilet and drinking water facilities, the Odisha Legislative Assembly was told Wednesday.
The state government presented the district-wise details about the availability of toilet facilities for boys and girls and also about drinking water facility at these schools under the School and Mass Education department.
The written statement submitted by the government said that as per the latest findings of the Unified District Information on School Education (UDISE) for 2017-18, as many as 1,926 schools are deprived of dedicated toilet facilities for the students.
The data claimed that the state has 54,298 government schools out of which 52,521 have separate toilets for boys and 53,763 have toilets for girls. On the other hand, 1,485 schools do not have toilets for boys while 441 lack toilets for girls. So, altogether 1,926 schools don’t have toilets.
The situation of sanitation is worse in the government schools of Bhadrak, Bargarh, Koraput, Nayagarh, Sambalpur and Keonjhar. The districts which reported maximum coverage of toilets are: Gajapati, Kandhamal and Rayagada among others.
However, absence of safe drinking water in all the government schools is more worrisome as the report cited that students of these schools use wells and handpumps for the purpose.
The Assembly data claimed that handpumps meet more than 75 per cent of drinking water needs of the schoolchildren. Figures suggest that out of the 54,298 schools, 45,713 schools had water supply through handpumps alone while 2,726 use wells. On the other hand, 7,253 schools had piped water supply.