Hyderabad: More than 100 students residing in a hostel of the TS Model School & Girls Junior College in Vikarabad’s Nawabpeta mandal are going without meals due to the absence of workers to cook for them. This has driven the school's junior college students to rely on leftover midday meals meant for other students.
The hostel's dire state of affairs is a reflection of the government's negligence in settling bills and providing salaries to the workers, who claim that they receive meager payments at infrequent intervals. “The government has not paid us our dues, and it’s impossible to make ends meet with these irregular and insufficient payments," said a worker.
The situation became so dire that the responsibility of preparing meals fell upon the school's watchman. "On the day that the watchman is sick or off, we have to scramble for ways to get these students to have three meals a day," said the caretaker of the hostel. She added that a lot of students from far off places had come to school and junior college only because of midday meal scheme or the hostel.
When it tried to hire local workers, the wage demand was Rs 300 per day.
Adding to the crisis, the TS Model School lacks a headmistress, and the in-charge, Gunza Satyasiddhardhini, revealed that she has had to dip into her own pocket on multiple occasions to pay for food bills and raw materials. "There was a time I paid Rs 30,000 from the school account to get food and pay the electricity bill for the students and have been remitting back into the account since then," she told Deccan Chronicle.
An additional employee, who took on extra duties to compensate for the lack of staff, disclosed that the hostel remained closed for a week after Dasara vacation due to a lack of funds to provide for the students' basic needs.
When a delegation of staff members sought assistance from the district and mandal education officers, their pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears. They were allegedly told to prioritise day scholars over hostel residents. Remarkably, education officers remained unavailable for comment despite the escalating crisis.
Satyasiddhardhini, along with her two female colleagues and two male teachers, expressed their unwavering commitment to their students, even in the face of delayed salaries. "We've always been forced to work without receiving our salaries on time, and we will continue to do so to ensure our students' welfare," she declared. This dire situation highlights the need for urgent government intervention to prevent further suffering and neglect within the education system.
