One more incident of a fire after Surat. This time it happened in Faridabad where a play school was being run on the first floor of a shop. Due to summer vacations, no student was there in school otherwise the country would have suffered further losses of its future citizens.
After the Surat incident, the government of Haryana tried to come on the front foot and passed an order to district authorities to check the firefighting systems of all schools and coaching centers. It is very easy for district authorities to check the same. But, I know that authorities will check private schools only, they will not check government schools because if faults are found, they will be guilty for the same.
In this case, I have only one but a big question: do the lives of government school students have no value?
In May 2019, schools were ordered to tender a certificate that they have their Disaster Management Schemes in place and on paper, it was pulled through. But no one checked on ground level. Most schools do not have proper firefighting equipment or an evacuation plan. But still, schools claim that they do have disaster management schemes.
Schools that do have schemes in place, must be ordered to share the same with parents. It must be pasted on the notice board for its implementation in a practical way.
Now, I speak on part of coaching centers. The government of Haryana has no policy to implement in coaching centers. These centers have become a shop, where education is sold. I have seen a lot of coaching institutes in Haryana which don’t even have basic infrastructure, but students avail services nonetheless. They never complain to institute owners that basic facilities are not provided even after paying huge fees. But, should anything go wrong, the government will be blamed.
Conclusively, I would like to request the government, owners of private schools (or those who claim to be the owners), private coaching institutes and the general public at large to go down to the root of the problem. Don’t put the life of students at stake for a little amount of money. Be aware, these students are future makers of the country. It is easy to rebuild the structure of a building, but a loss of life can’t be recovered as easily. Compensation can be given, but money gives no relief to the pain of a person.