ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court directed the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) to complete all under-construction school projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) by June 22.
A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, on Tuesday, heard a suo moto on not constructing the schools in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa that were damaged in 2005 earthquake.
The bench ordered the KP government to furnish the details of the students and the teachers in the completed schools.
The top court expressed annoyance at the chairman ERRA over the non-completion of the projects, which were under the authority’s purview. He asked the chairman that the ERRA officials are just taking salaries and benefits.
“If it had been your own children who were out of schools then you would have worked.”
The chairman informed that out of 14,000 projects, 3,000 are incomplete so far. “Education and health are our top priority,” he added.
Upon that, the chief justice said that had education and health been the authority’s priority then the projects would have been completed by now. “The earthquake-hit areas and schools should have been built within a year,” said the CJP, adding that the schools, of which photographs were presented before the court, seem inactive.
Justice Qazi Amin, another member of the bench, said the KP government’s negligence had turned education into an industry.
“The college fee used to be Rs8, now it is Rs30000 for school going children,” Justice Amin said.
“It is the responsibility of the state to provide free education.
The K-P government should not try to hide behind the ERRA,” he further stated. The provincial advocate general prayed that so far, 238 out of 540 schools had been completed. The court sought a progress report from the KP government on the said projects and adjourned the hearing for a month.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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