The lives of at least 800 schoolchildren, aged between eight to 16 years, are at stake: the North Nazimabad-based Generation’s School is set to shift its campus to the Sindh Industrial and Trading Estates (SITE) area, in the heart of industrial and chemical emissions, Pakistan Today has learnt.
The school is being established on a 5-acre plot near the Siemens Chowrangi, and is almost complete. Prior to the construction of the school building, a multinational company, Berger Paints, had set up its production units at the site. In February, 2008, one of the production units of the company caught fire; for at least 48 hours, the blaze could not be doused and as a result, pollution levels were increased to an alarming level in the SITE area.
“The management of Generation’s School, which is presently running the school in North Nazimabad’s residential area, obtained a No Objection Certificate (NoC) from SITE Ltd, after paying their officials handsome sums in gratification money,” sources alleged. “The school wants to increase enrolment from the present capacity of 800 to some 2,000, with classes running from Grade-III to ‘A-Levels. More than 300 teachers will also work at the new premises,” sources claimed.
The site of the new school stinks of industrial waste and chemicals, sources explained, with the campus situated just adjacent to a sewerage treatment plant. Apart from environmental hazards, schoolchildren would also be exposed to threats of industrial hazards. The immediate, as well as, general surroundings of the school’s new campus are dotted with high-pressure boilers and other explosive installations. However, no authority was taking serious pragmatic effort to restrain the school management from the relocation of the school, they said.
Surprisingly, the school management had tasked the Pakistan Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (PCSIR) to measure some of Ambient Air Quality parameters of the industrial area. The management did not make the PCSIR’s environmental report public, but the laboratory report, a copy of which is available with Pakistan Today, warns against relocating the school to the site area.
The report claims that the levels of nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxides are much higher in the SITE area, while particulate matter – a combination of toxic and non-toxic fine particles that enter the human body during breathing – is almost four times as high as that in the North Nazimabad campus.
Despite the report, the school management secured an NoC from SEPA, sources claimed.
This is just ridiculous! Relocating the school merely to increase the enrollment capacity and paying no heed to the environmental and industrial hazards the students would be exposed to…can the administrators ever look beyond the financial side of the story! This is just PATHETIC!
ahem! this lacks proper analysis! the facts have been presumed and writtten without evidence. I for one have visited the school, and am planning to enroll my children there. The school had asked PCSIR to gauge the extent of environmental hazards in the area, and it did conclude that the area was comparitively less prone to environmental damage than north nazimabad. Also the building is earthquake proof, and extreme safety measures have been taken care of. As far as i can see the school's efforts are beyond recommendable. Try visiting it if u already haven't… which i'm pretty sure is true for your case … do not post stuff without prior knowledge ….. aren't people sued for that??
i want the whole information for my son’s admission in GENERATION SCHOOL.
PLZ LET ME KNOW
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02136679879
THANKS
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