Students attempt suicide citing lack of facilities at school in Maharashtra district

“They were carrying chits in their pockets where they had listed complaints about lack of facilities at their school including lack of teachers,” said the Superintendent of Police, Sandip Diwan.

Chandrapur MP Hansraj Ahir, Ballarpur MLA and state Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and a host of government officials rushed to the hospital to meet the students.

Pravin was carrying chocolates in his pockets which he offered to Mungantiwar in a dramatic scene, telling him about his birthday. Mungantiwar promised strict action against the authorities running the private aided school. Mungantiwar then gave a pep talk to the students that they should give up and must make a resolve on the Independence Day to fight on.

Social activist Paromita Goswami, who met the students, told The Indian Express, “lack of facilities at such schools is very common across India, but what is more serious is that the students possibly had no grievance redressal mechanism to fall back on forcing them think of drastic steps like suicide. Lack of facilities isn’t a big issue here but, as I could understand after talking to them, they were frustrated with non-availability of teachers.”

Goswami further said, “each school is mandatorily supposed to have school management committee comprising representatives from parents, education experts, women, SC/ST communities, panchayat members, etc. These committees apparently go defunct or remain only on papers. So, the school authorities tend to ignore the complaints of the students.”