Two students studying in class 2 at a government school in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district were injured after parts of the ceiling plaster collapsed and fell on the students while a class was going on. The incident happened on Thursday, April 28, at the Mandal Parishad (Upper Primary) Urdu school in Gonegandla. The two injured students, Safhan and Areef, were taken to a hospital where they received stitches for their injuries. 

The school was built around 30 years ago, the Mandal Education Officer (MEO) told Telugu daily Sakshi, adding that a report on the status of the school building has been submitted to authorities. One of the parents, Kamal Basha, told the media that despite complaints about the dilapidated state of the building, no action had been taken. Lamenting that the children’s lives were endangered due to negligence, he asked the government to take immediate action. 

Local residents complained that despite the renovation and expansion works taken up at other government schools under the government’s Nadu-Nedu scheme, the Gonegandla Urdu school had not been selected for repair works under the same scheme. The MEO told The New Indian Express that the school had around 66 students and two classrooms, and with the strength not increasing by much in recent years, it was not sanctioned new classrooms which could have affected its selection under the  Nadu-Nedu scheme. According to TNIE, of the 55 government schools in Gonegandla mandal, the Urdu school is one among five schools which were not selected in the first two phases of Nadu-Nedu. 

Telugu Desam Party chief and former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu termed the incident as “painful”, and alleged that the YSRCP government was only making false claims under Nadu-Nedu. He demanded that the government admit to its mistakes and do justice to the families of the injured children.