PUNE: With schools run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) schools looking clearly ill-equipped for fire safety, doubts have been raised over reopening for the new academic year this Wednesday.
Of the 138 civic schools in the city, only 60 are equipped with firefighting equipment, according to a survey conducted by Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena (MNVS). Even the equipment at these 60 schools is non-functional.
The outfit has now urged the PMC education board to restart offline schooling only after conducting fire audits to be prepared for emergency situations. The board has in turn ordered an audit of existing systems right away and also decided to equip all its schools with firefighting equipment immediately.
The deputy director of education (DyDE) has asked private schools to also conduct fire audits on priority.
MNVS leader Prashant Kanojia said the lives of students are at risk as schools are dangerously ill-equipped to fight any kind of fire emergency. "When we visited the schools that claimed to have fire safety in place, we saw that it was defunct. Maybe the two years of the pandemic have left campuses unattended, but with schools reopening in just two days, the authorities have failed to give any attention to this serious issue," he said.
Around 1lakh students are enrolled in civic schools in thge city, from nursery to standard VIII. As per a state government notification, they are set to reopen for academic year 2022-23 from June 15.
"PMC has spent over Rs1 crore on buying fire safety equipment as per its records. But the reality is different. The majority of civic schools don't even have such equipment," added Kanojia.
When contacted, PMC officials claimed that total funds required to strengthen every civic school are much more than the allocation they have received. PMC building department executive engineer Harshada Shinde said, "We are floating a tender to procure fire safety equipment for schools. We get around Rs30 lakh per zone, which is far too less. However, for now, we will cover as many schools as possible in the available funds. We are also drawing up an estimate of how much more funding is required to cover all schools and will proceed accordingly."
Shinde added that the tendering process will take a month or so, followed by actual procurement and then deployment of equipment in schools - which will take another three months.
Education commissioner Suraj Mandhare said all deputy directors in the state have been asked to categorically review fire safety preparedness in schools across Maharashtra. Mandhare told TOI, "We have even given permission to deputy directors to procure equipment for schools from the 5% DPC reserve funds. All the deputy directors will examine the readiness of schools with respect to fire safety and plug the gaps if any."
