PWD WILL BEGIN WORK TO ADD 12,000 ROOMS IN GOVT SCHOOLS

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s Public Works Department (PWD) will soon begin construction of over 12,000 rooms in government schools across the city, out of which 9,981 will be classrooms. This project was approved by the Cabinet last month and is likely to be completed in one-and-a-half years, officials said.

In the run up to 2015 Delhi Assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had promised to build 500 new schools to ensure that every child has easy access to quality education.

Currently, there are 1,024 government-run schools across Delhi and many of them are forced to run in double shifts due to lack of space. After this project was cleared by the Cabinet in July, state education minister Manish Sisodia had said that it would give a major boost to infrastructure at schools.

According to PWD officials, it would be the second phase of classroom construction project. In the first phase, the government had reportedly constructed around 8,000 classrooms at its schools. The AAP government had been saying that construction of 8,000 classrooms was equivalent to that of 200 new schools.

“It is a big project so multiple tenders will be floated between August end and early next month. The department had 10 days ago received a fund sanction of around ₹2,900 crore for the project. The construction work will begin in two months,” a senior PWD official said.

The PWD official said that out of the total 12,478 new rooms to be constructed in government schools, a total of 9,981 would be classrooms, 328 laboratories, 106 multipurpose halls, 204 libraries, 1,067 toilet blocks and rooms for the school staff. “This new infrastructure will come up at the vacant space available at 225 schools,” the official said.