Bumper crop forces students out of schools in Andhra

Hyderabad: Classrooms in Andhra Pradesh schools are full this academic year, not with students but with stacks of paddy bags. A bumper harvest this rabi season, and not enough godowns to store, has meant students in government schools are forced to sit out in the open.

"From the day of reopening of school, everywhere there is paddy. No place to sit," said a student in a Warangal school.

Primary schools, secondary schools, welfare hostels, even the playground has not been spared.

"There is no place even to play. So our teachers are making us sit here," said another student.

The irony is that the state government has started an ambitious enrolment drive even as existing schools have no space for students.

"They keep promising they will remove the paddy but they don't. We wanted to increase enrolment this year but this way we are losing even our regular students," said the principal of one such school.

The rainy season is already here and the rationale seems to be that students and education becoming a casualty is a smaller price to pay instead of allowing foodgrain to rot. The government dismisses it as a temporary problem but inadequate storage space for harvested crop has become a perennial problem.