Daijiworld Media Network - Puttur (SP)
Puttur, Oct 7: The Dakshina Kannada district Child Welfare Committee (CWC) formed under the Juvenile Justice Act, has ordered the department of education, public works department and the school administration, to jointly pay a sum of eight lac rupees each to the families of the school children, who lost their lives in the Ulaibettu tragedy that occurred near Mangalore last year.
The Committee, which held detailed investigations into a complaint filed by a social activist from here, R K Pangannaya, has held the above three responsible for the tragedy. The CWC has asked the education and public works departments to pay two lac rupees and five lac rupees respectively, while the school manager has been ordered to pay a sum of one lac rupees each, to the families of the deceased children, within a month.
It may be recalled, that after a school vehicle rolled into the flooded river at Ulaibettu near Gurpur, Mangalore, on August 14, 2008, apparently due to erratic driving, students Aisha Suhana (5), Fatimatul Musheena (7), Haseena (7), Afrul Rahiman (7), Sambrina (10), Mohammed Hafiz (8) and Musheer (4) had lost their lives. All these children were the students of Balmi School in Kaikamba near Gurpur.
The Committee observed that the public works department failed to offer protection to the citizens against natural calamity by its action of not erecting protective walls for the vehicles moving on the narrow road adjoining river Phalguni. During the inspection, the CWC found craters measuring three ft in diametre on this road. The vehicle that met with tragedy was in the name of the school, it has observed. While the Mangalore rural block education officer claimed that holiday had been declared for the day because of heavy rains, and that all the schools were informed of the same over phone through the education coordinator, the school headmistress had said that the school had not received any such instructions. The Committee said that the block education officer has committed dereliction of duty, and recommended legal steps against him. It has also decided to censure the school headmistress for the faulty handling of the issue.
It has also asked the district deputy commissioner to make arrangements for the declaration of mandatory holidays for the schools in the district, in coordination with the meteorological department, wherever the rainfall is felt to be at a level that is considered dangerous.