‘Aathmeeyudu’ owns up improvement of hostels in Narayanpet

Officials from other departments deputed to find gaps and find solutions to bridge them

In an attempt to improve the delivery systems in government educational and welfare and institutions, the Narayanpet district administration has launched a novel initiative called “Aathmeeyudu” during the last week of November by entrusting the task of finding problems and addressing them to officers of other departments.

Surprise visits to residential schools such as KGBV (11), social welfare (6), BC welfare (3), minorities welfare (2) and tribal welfare (1), model schools (2) and social welfare (13) and BC welfare (9) hostels — 47 in all with a strength of over 12,750 students including 8,160 girls — by the officers drawn from other departments for the purpose have already helped the district administration to start working towards improving the conditions in those institutions.

“Apart from identifying infrastructural gaps, the special officers have been told to enumerate the needs of students/residents by mingling and interacting with them on regular basis, which otherwise are treated as routine by the supervisory officials concerned, to improve the quality of education and boarding facilities,” District Collector S. Venkata Rao said explaining the objectives of the initiative.

As 17 of the 47 institutions are housed in rented/private buildings, the common problems identified so far in many schools/hostels are related to basic infrastructure such as poor lighting, ventilation, congested rooms, lack of sick rooms (for the sick) and others. “A hostel at Kosigi housed in a private building doesn’t even have window shutters and the building owner has agreed to fix them by the month-end,” an Aathmeeyudu told The Hindu.

Another hostel also at Kosigi has very small rooms of 9×9 feet area for accommodating 15 students each. “Although the multi-step cots and beds required are ready, the rooms are too small to place them,” another Aathmeeyudu said. However, the initiative has been helping in meeting some basic needs with the help of voluntary organisations due to paucity of departmental funds.

The problems identified are listed with the help of Palle Pragathi mobile app, wherein a separate patch has been created to save money for creating and maintaining another such system, and reviewed every fortnight, the District Collector said. “Girls will open up only after they take us (Aathmeeyudu) into confidence and it will happen only after several visits and interaction to share their problems, whether academics-related, health or otherwise,” R. Kalindini, Chief Executive Officer of Zilla Parishad said.

“As it’s the winter season most of the 156 inmates of the boys post-matric hostel at Kosigi doesn’t even have blankets as there’s no provision for their supply. We have requested a couple of voluntary organisations to arrange the blankets and they have agreed to supply them in a week or so,” L. Chakradharam, an Executive Engineer in the Irrigation Department drawn as Aathmeeyudu explained.