The data collected by the state government on status of primary schools paints a dismal picture of lack of infrastructure and neglect of primary education in rural Himachal Pradesh. Successive governments have concentrated on opening new schools, but the basic requirement of providing buildings to the schools has received low priority. A senior official in the Education Department alleges many schools are even without adequate teaching staff.

Official figures, which were recently complied here before the state government launched its new scheme to provide a minimum of three rooms to nearly 7,271 schools in the next three years, show out of 10,484 primary schools in the state, 1,964 are without even a single room, 1,713 have single room accommodation and 2,436 schools have two rooms. Kangra district has a record number of 3,569 schools operating from `kuccha' buildings, followed by Shimla district, having 2,524 primary schools.

According to official figures, out of the existing 13,989 rooms in primary schools, there are only 9,880 pucca rooms. Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal says ``three-room accommodation for primary schools, including an additional one room for the four DPEPs (District Primary Education Project) in the district is a basic requirement to strengthen primary education in the state.'' This was necessitated as Himachal Pradesh was the first state in the country which had made primary education compulsory by passing a legislation to this effect, he said.

Former Minister for Primary Education Asha Kumari appreciates the belated action of the government to draw up a scheme for providing the rooms to schools but doubts whether it could be achieved in a time-bound manner. She blames the government for slowing down implementation of a World Bank-aided project in four districts, which also had a component to construct two rooms for primary schools.

Under the scheme ``Saswati Bal Vidya Sankalp Yojana,'' the government plans to spend nearly Rs 126 crore to construct a total of 13,612 rooms in 7,271 schools. The state budget, which the Chief Minister will present in the Assembly next month, is likely to reflect the initial allocation to start work on the scheme. The government has already proposed opening of additional 150 primary schools in 1998-99, another 100 in 1999-2000 and an equal number of schools in 2000-2001.