Srinagar, Apr 15: The J&K Health department is likely to utilise around 500 abandoned school buildings as healthcare centres after the School Education Department (SED) handed over these structures to the health department.
The move comes after the enrollment of students reduced to zero in all these government primary schools leaving the school buildings vacant for years together.
For this, the Directors of Health Services Kashmir and Jammu decision have instructed all the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of Kashmir and Jammu division to constitute a team of officers to oversee suitability of these school buildings to be used as health care centres.
“The teams of officers need to include members from the planning side as well as an expert, who will have physical inspection of school buildings to oversee suitability of these school buildings, so that these buildings can be used as government health care centers,” a department circular reads.
The Director Health Services Kashmir has instructed the teams to submit their report to the directorate within a period of five days “positively.”
Also, the Directorate of Health Services Jammu (DHSJ) has also received a list of around 245 buildings of government primary schools having zero enrollment which can be utilised to run the health institutes operating from rented accommodations across Jammu division.
“The list of primary schools with zero enrolment has been received from the administrative department,” reads an official communication of DHSJ addressed to all CMOs of Jammu division with the instructions to examine the feasibility if any of these school buildings can be utilized for running health institutes.
“The inputs in this matter may be shared with in week’s time positively for the appraisal of the higher authorities,” the communication reads.
An official of the health department told Greater Kashmir that after inspecting the buildings, the department may shift the sub centres and primary health centres to these government (school) buildings.
“We have many health centres functioning from rented buildings. So on the basis of the feasibility report of the vacant school buildings, these centres will be shifted and made operational from government buildings,” the official said.
The abandoned 250 school buildings to be inspected by DHSK in Kashmir division include 18 abandoned in Anantnag, 69 in Baramulla, Bandipora (3), Ganderbal (17), Kulgam (2), Kupwara (11), Pulwama (28), Shopian (33) and 70 in Srinagar districts.
While the 245 school buildings to be inspected include 22 school buildings in Doda district, Jammu (48), Kathua (30), Kishtwar (25), Poonch (17), Rajouri (31), Ramban (9), Reasi (5), Samba (25) and 33 buildings in Udhampur district respectively.
Notably, more than 800 school buildings were left abandoned by SED post rationalization of around 2400 government schools over meager or zero enrollment of students. The rationalization was ordered in 2015-16 wherein the schools having meager or zero enrolment were clubbed with the nearby schools to streamline the lopsided Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) in schools.
This newspaper has carried a series of stories highlighting the lack of ownership of these school buildings which were left abandoned with no watch and ward from the competent authorities.
Following this, the J&K Government last year started an exhaustive exercise to collect the details of the school buildings which were left abandoned post rationalization of government schools some six years ago. The Chief Education Officers (CEOs) were instructed to submit the details of abandoned school buildings in the Valley for their distribution to different government departments to put them in use as per the requirement.
It was also decided that the abandoned (vacant) school buildings will be handed over to the concerned district administrations which will later distribute these buildings to different government departments for utilization according to their requirements.