The Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Sayalkudi was reopened on Tuesday more than a week after Deepavali holidays as the entire school premises was inundated after heavy rains lashed the district since the onset of north east monsoon on October 17.
The more than 1,100 girl students of class VI to XII had no access to the school after Deepavali holidays as the entire school premises was submerged in rain water. After the authorities pumped out the water, the students waded through knee-deep water to enter into their classrooms on Tuesday.
The students have been facing waterlogging problem since 2012 but there has been no remedy, said K. Baskaran, district coordinator of Aadhi Tamizhar Katchi, who has been waging a lone battle for the students. He has been presenting petitions to the district administration and education department but no permanent solution could be found, he said.
The authorities deliberately avoid cleaning up the channels so that stagnant water could be drained to the nearby waterbodies. They prefer pumping out the water, using motor pumps as it was ‘more lucrative’ for them, he alleged.
Mr. Baskaran, who brought the situation to the notice of Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao on Monday, said he had staged a dharna inside the Collectorate, wearing the petitions he had so far presented as a garland in 2016. The then Collector S. Natarajan had ordered the cleaning of the drainage channel but the encroachments could not be fully removed, he recalled. The school itself was built over a waterbody after filling it with earth.
The water could be drained and diverted to the MGR Oorani and Ilandaikulam via Pullandai, Irumeni and Sandanamara Odai but there were encroachments in the entire stretch, he added. Meanwhile, acting on the petition presented by him, the Collector convened a meeting with Chief Educational Officer (CEO) A. Pugazhendi on Tuesday evening to work out a permanent solution.
