Repair works at govt school in Dipke's village start soon after he flags gaps

Repair work at a government school in the native village of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke in Maharashtra’s Hingoli district began soon after he inspected the campus and flagged a lack of basic amenities, an official said on Monday, 17 August.

Dipke visited the zilla parishad-run school in Santuk Pimpri on 15 August to launch the CJP’s ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign, a nationwide initiative aimed at conducting social audits of government schools, particularly in rural areas, and highlighting deficiencies in infrastructure and basic facilities.

The campaign comes against the backdrop of the CJP’s broader focus on education reforms and its criticism of the neglect of government schools. The outfit, which began as a youth-led movement around issues including unemployment and the education system, has increasingly focused on problems affecting students and public education.

After attending the Independence Day flag-hoisting ceremony at the school in his native village, the 30-year-old activist inspected the campus and pointed to broken window panes in classrooms and other shortcomings.

Soon after his visit, the local gram panchayat ordered repair work at the school. Santuk Pimpri sarpanch Vijay Puri said the administration had begun addressing the infrastructure gaps flagged by Dipke. "Abhijeet Dipke came to the school and checked its amenities. We have started working on them (infrastructure gaps highlighted by him). (Damaged) windows are being changed and defunct CCTV cameras are being replaced," Puri told reporters.

"We are installing new window frames. There was also an issue of shortage of water in the toilets. We have arranged round-the-clock supply of water in the washrooms," the sarpanch said.

Senior officials from the state education department have also instructed the school management to expedite repairs and address the deficiencies.

The school headmaster said, "We have received instructions from the higher authorities and accordingly repair works have been undertaken."

The Santuk Pimpri school was the first institution audited under the ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign, which Dipke said would be expanded to government schools in other parts of the country to document shortcomings and push authorities to address them.

With PTI inputs