Students are told to keep the doors closed while eating midday meals to keep it safe from animals

: The pigs are roaming about eating garbage strewn on the ground while monkeys play in the trees. It’s a scene that wouldn’t be amiss in an animal farm, but this is what greets students daily at the South Delhi Municipal Corporation-run Bhati Mines School, situated on the outskirts of Delhi.
When The Hindu visited the school on Wednesday, pigs had free entry to the school while a monkey sat at a window of a classroom, unconcerned as a teacher tried to shoo it away.
In another classroom, a seven-year-old boy sat idly. When asked the reason behind not studying, he said: “My teacher has gone to find a stick from the store room as monkeys keep coming inside the class.”
The situation is so bad that the students have been instructed to stay in their classrooms and keep the doors closed while eating the midday meal to keep it safe from prowling animals.
The school, situated in the middle of the unauthorised Sanjay Colony, has over 500 students enrolled in each shift but the average attendance is just 300-350 students per shift. Records show there are just 16 teachers in the school.
Besides the menace of animals, the toilets in the school were found to be unclean with no proper water supply.
While the principal was not in school, the teacher in-charge said: “If you found the toilets unclean it is because there is no water supply in the school. We have to get water from a tanker here and for how long can that last? I have written numerous letters to the SDMC from the most junior-level employee to the most senior-level employee but no one cares to respond.”
“Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the school sometime ago and saw the deplorable condition of the school but no action was taken,” he added.
The councillor’s seat in Bhati ward is currently vacant as the former councillor Kartar Singh Tanwar got elected as an MLA in the recent Assembly elections.
On being confronted with the school’s situation, an SDMC Education Department official said: “There is no Delhi Jal Board connection in the area, which is why we have to provide water from tankers. There should not be any problem as far as I understand. Regarding the monkey mess, this problem is because of the school’s proximity to the Asola Wildlife sanctuary.”
The official, however, did not say anything about the free passage of pigs and garbage inside the school premises, but he did agree that teachers have to do the job of chasing away animals apart from teaching.