Journalism of Courage
A leaking underground water pipeline running along the boundary wall has flooded The Bishops School in Pune Camp with problems.
Efforts to channel the water away from the playground have proved futile as the flow is continuous,filling the ground with puddles and leading to concern over mosquitoes breeding at these spots and posing a health hazard for students.
The problem is not new and had been continuing for almost one-and-a-half-year now,rendering at least a fourth of the playground unfit for use. Complaints to the PMC water works department also yielded no results,says the principal,Frank Freese.
We have made several complaints to the PMC water works department,but nothing has been done to remedy it, said Freese.
The prominent academic institution in the city is one of the three branches of The Bishops School and is located at 5A,General Bhagat Marg,Camp. School officials said nearly 25 per cent of the ground has been rendered useless and they fear that the entire ground would gradually be damaged.
Mosquitoes breeding in the water collected on the ground is another concern. We fog the ground every day so that our students do not get affected, said Gordon Barren,the estate manager of the school.
The school has taken several measures to tackle the problem. We dug two pits,one 8-foot-deep and the other 4-foot-deep. Trenches have been made to divert the water into the pits. But the flow of the water is continuous and the faster we try to drain it out ,the faster it gushes onto our campus, said Leonard Johns,the assistant estate manager.
Last year,the school had a tough time organising the Maharashtra Day function. The two-day event was held on this ground and a large number of students had participated. We could not use the whole ground as most of it was wet throughout the day. The ground is 55 metres X 97 metres, said Barren.
He said the only solace was that the water gushing onto the ground is clean and not sewer water. We sent a sample for tests and got it confirmed, said Barren.
