On the 24th of February, PonugotiChokka Rao, the General Secretary of the Development and Welfare Association of the Blind, Telangana and Secretary, of All India Confederation of the Blind, Hyderabad condemned the death of a 12 year old visually impaired boy.
It is to be noted, Goutham Laxmi Srikar, a 12 year old visually impaired boy studying in Devnar School for the Blind, Mayuri Marg, Begumpet, fell from 5th floor. On the 23rd of February, Thursday.
In a press note released on Friday, Mr. Chokka Rao said, “This is a very unfortunate incident for a blind student to die in such a tragic situation. We would like to highlight the issue relating to running Blind School by NGOs in the city when there are already two blind schools in Hyderabad. The Government Blind Schools in Hyderabad have all the infrastructure with trained teachers and a low student strength. Therefore, there is no reason for encouraging a private NGO to run Blind School with no adequate infrastructure and trained staff. Most of NGOs running Blind School are found to be illegal with dubious history. Already there is steady decline in children born with partial or complete blindness and therefore the government should keep an eye on private organisations running blind schools with the only motive of making money.” He further said, “We request the Central and State Governments to immediately investigate the tragic death of blind student in the private school to find out the truth and to avoid such incidents happening in future. We also demand the Governments to extend financial help of Rs one crore to the parents of the Blind student Goutham Laxmi Srikar. We held a condolence meeting in our Blind School in Nalgonda by observing two-minute silence and our Blind students and staff paid respects to the fellow blind student, who died in tragic circumstances yesterday.”
The board further asked the K. Chandrashekar Rao led Telangana Government to shift all the blind students studying in private blind schools to shift to the state run schools. Adding to the negligence of the NGOs and private schools, lacking the necessary infrastructure, the Welfare Board for blind also demanded an investigation and closure of such illegal schools for visually impaired kids in the Telugu State.
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