SAHIWAL: Sewage, animal dung and garbage have converted the playground of the Government High School at Chak 78/5-R into a filthy pond and a heap of garbage.

Sewage has eaten up 50 per cent land of school playground and it is spreading diseases among more than 250 students of the 100-year-old school.

The school spreads over four acre land and only 20pc school premises is covered with a concrete five-foot boundary wall from one side. The rest of the school boundary is marked with an iron wire.

Haji Afzal, a member of the school management committee, says there are more than 100 village houses whose sewage and garbage are disposed of into the school playground. The absence of school boundary wall is also a reason for the neighbours to throw dung and other waste into playground, he adds.

This correspondent visited the school and found more than two dozen cattle and cows tied along the school playground.

“Village women throw animal dung and garbage in the school playground and this has been going on for the last 15 years,” says Muhammad Ali, a village resident.

Rana Muhammad Anwar, newly elected chairman of the union council, says the village has no drainage system and all its sewage goes into the school playground.

Headmaster Shahzad Yousaf complains that many a time villagers were asked to construct their own gutters and watercourses for sewage but in vain.

“The school was constructed at a low-lying piece of land and most of village sewage flows towards it. The problem was not addressed when school was upgraded twice,” a teacher says.

Ramzan Jutt, newly elected vice chairman of the PML-N, says MNA and MPA concerned were briefed on the situation but they did not allocate any funds for drainage system in the village.

An official in the district education office has revealed that rural high schools have no development budget and they have only non-development budget ranging from Rs20,000 to 30,000 annually.

The villagers complain that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is spending huge money on Daanish Schools when public schools in rural Punjab must be given priority. They have appealed to the CM and school education authorities to look into the matter and improve condition of the school.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2016