MULTAN, Oct 4: A number of local municipal corporation schools have been reduced to ruins due to the negligence of authorities concerned and former elected representatives.

More than 22,000 boys and girls are on the roll in as many as 99 MC schools, including 34 primary and seven middle schools for boys and 48 primary and 10 middle schools for girls.

For not having been repaired for many years, a large number of buildings are in dilapidated condition. The buildings of 29 schools have been declared dangerous. Of them, only 10 schools have shifted their classes.

The poor condition of the school buildings has led to the creation of host of other problems. Some schools with collapsed walls, including the Middle High School, Chowk Shahida, have become haven for drug addicts. Children who visit the school for studies or for sports in the evening are full of apprehensions about their safety.

Some schools are even used as toilets. In the schools without boundary walls, heaps of filth created by residents of the locality emit miasma, leaving little or no atmosphere for students to concentrate on their studies.

As the ceilings of many rooms in several municipal schools have collapsed, hundreds of students have to sit in open or in corridors, be it heat or cold.

A teacher in the boys primary school, Aam Khas Bagh, told this correspondent that four out of 12 rooms in the school could house the children. There was a shortage of attendance registers and black boards.

“We have been asked to increase students’ strength in the school by the MC authorities but could this be imagined in the absence of basic facilities,” the teacher grumbled.

In boys middle school, Chowk Shahida, the playground has been converted into a pool of contaminated water which gives birth to the itch disease among students. The residents of the locality make holes in the school walls, allowing water to awash in the playground, when it rains.

In MC middle school, Agha Pura, contaminated water of the adjacent drainage pump pours into the school rooms through cracked walls. Some people even fasten their goats in some schools.

The headmistress of MC girls primary school, Androon Pak Gate, has time and again brought the situation into the notice of the municipal authorities and elected representatives of the area but without success. Windows and doors of many rooms of the school have disappeared. Some people go as far as to steal the school’s furniture and other valuables by scaling the short boundary walls in the evening.

The shortage of furniture or jute mats (canvas) at the MC schools have forced the students to sit on floors. The schools needed some 10,000 canvas pieces. However, the authorities had recently provided only 3,000.

One of the reasons for present state of affairs is the small amount allocated for the development. A sum of Rs56 million was allocated for the salaries of teachers and Rs6 million for development and furniture in the last year’s budget, a clear indication of the neglect the development is subject to.

Speaking of the ill, MC education officer Riaz Baloch said that funds shortage was one of the prime reasons for this mess. Municipal assistant engineer Abdul Wahid revealed that he had prepared a feasibility report two years back, according to which 29 schools needed urgent repair at the cost of Rs8 million. The amount, he said, had not been sanctioned so far.

Another officer, on the request of anonymity, said lack of interest on part of former administrators and mayors had brought the situation to such a chaos. Mayors, he continued, ignored the mission because of political and financial motives of some other influential people.