Telangana High Court on Thursday asked senior counsel L. Ravichander to examine conditions at the two hostels for the visually challenged in city and furnish a report to it by Tuesday.
While the boys’ hostel is located near Salar Jung Museum, another meant for girls is at Malakpet. A Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili, which suo moto took up a news report of an English daily on the pathetic conditions of the two hostels as PIL petition, asked the senior counsel to visit the two hostels at the earliest and present a report.
The newspaper report stated that the 60-odd visually impaired students living in the two hostels did not even have basic facilities like cleanliness. Due to space crunch, 30 students were being forced to live in a single room which had the capacity to accommodate not more than five persons.
Having perused the newspaper report, the CJ observed that the inmates of the hostels did not have access to quality food, education or proper hygiene. In one hostel, the toilet was located 300 metres away from the hostel building. One of the hostel buildings was demolished three years ago.
Even after three years, the government had not taken a call on construction of a new hostel building, the Bench said. Special Government Pleader Sanjeev Kumar said that the government was providing nutritious food, including boiled eggs, to the inmates. Non-vegetarian food was being served to them twice a week, he said.
However, the CJ noted that the news report suggested that the students were compelled to eat, study and sleep in the classroom itself.
