Fund shortage hits Delhi's School Infrastructure development

The Delhi government has recently sanctioned the construction of over 7000 classrooms across the 146 schools in Delhi. The work in some of these schools has already begun. However the education minister Manish Sisodia stated that due to the Rs. 551 crore loans that they have to give to the municipal corporations many infrastructure projects had to be put on hold.

It is estimated that in the south east district of Delhi some dozen schools would get over 100 classrooms each. A total number of 7289 classrooms are to be made throughout the schools in Delhi. Around 1600 classrooms would be constructed in South East Delhi and 1323 classrooms in the North East in areas including Semapuri, Nand Nagari and Sunder Nagari. Some 1287 classrooms would be constructed in West B area. The Sarvodya Kanya Vidyalaya would get the maximum number of classrooms that is about 124 in number.

A list of schools with acute shortage of classrooms as per the RTE Act norms has been taken out by the Directorate of Education. According to DoE,” Administrative approval has been granted for construction of additional classrooms in the existing school premises.” In some schools the older structures would be demolished and new ones made while the damaged ones would be replaced. The RTE has laid down guidelines as to the maximum number of students that can sit in a classroom. This number is 30 in the primary section and 35 in the upper primary section. The schools that have the student-classroom ratio of over 50 have been enlisted by the DOE.

Sisodia stated,” I checked which tenders can be issued later and whether it will mean a huge delay. I was told infrastructure projects that will have been completed, say in July, will be ready by September. In any case, we’ll make provisions for these in the forthcoming budget.”

By 2017 Sisodia plans to expand the numbers of classrooms to 8000. At the moment some 25 new school buildings are near completion and 1000 more are in the pipeline.