Despite the fact that Gujarat is a power surplus state with all 18,000-odd villages connected to the grid, the state government informed the assembly on Monday that there are 23 government-run primary schools in the state that have no electricity connection.
While all government and private primary schools in Gujarat’s 27 districts have electricity, there are 23 schools in six districts that do not, according to data shared by the Gujarat government during the Question Hour session. The Gir Somnath district has nine such primary government schools, while Porbandar has seven.
The government could not give any reasons for the lack of power supply to these schools. The districts on the list include Kutch (2 schools), Surendranagar (1), Devbhoomi Dwarka (1) and Morbi (3).
Gujarat has over 37,000 MW of installed electricity generation capacity and its average per capita power consumption is 2,143 units — almost double the national average consumption of 1,208 units.
Furthermore, 5,439 state-run primary schools and 272 private-sector schools lack compound walls that separate the buildings from their immediate surroundings. Banaskantha has the most of these schools (692 in total).
“The state government has been claiming to have connected every house and every village in the state with the electricity grid. However, there are 23 government primary schools that do not have electricity supply. Similarly, the government is busy organising summits, but it does not have money to build compound walls for schools,” stated the Congress in an official release.
The state legislative Assembly was also informed on Monday that there is a shortage of 19,128 classrooms in Gujarat’s government-run primary schools.
The tribal districts of Dahod and Panchmahal have the maximum shortfall of classrooms, with 1,688 and 1,209 respectively, followed by Banaskantha (1,532 classrooms).