Imagine having no access to a proper drinking water supply. Well, this is a reality students of Sherab Gatshel Lower Secondary School in Samtse have been putting up with for the past five years.
The day for boarding students of the school under Norgaygang Gewog starts as early as 5:30 AM. They walk for about half an hour to fetch water for washing and most importantly, for preparing breakfast. When lucky enough, they are allowed to use the private water source, about 15 minutes by foot from the school.
Sharing about the ordeals they endure on a daily basis, one of the students, Bidhya Balrai, said forget taking regular baths and washing clothes, they struggle to find water for drinking.
Students often end up missing their morning assembly and even classes in fetching water for preparing their meals.
The works to connect the school with a proper water supply was contracted out in 2014. However, after the contractor missed the six-month deadline, he was terminated and even dragged to the court.
The Gup of Norgaygang Gewog, Rinchen Dorji said the problem has been there for years now. “The blame cannot be put on the contractors alone. I think the slow progress in the work is also due to lack of proper monitoring.”
Sources say another contractor then took up the work, which was supposed to be complete by October last year. However, the deadline was again pushed further to January this year.
The contractor explained water supply pipelines were damaged by farm road construction works and fixing it took time. This afternoon, the contractor told BBS that he submitted the work completion report to the Dungkhag yesterday.
The post Sherab Gatshel School plagued with acute water shortage appeared first on BBS.