ITDC
A broken tap is a small purchase and a large interruption. A school should not need the administrative machinery of a new building to restore an ordinary facility. Headteachers need bounded authority to commission routine repairs, backed by money that arrives predictably.
This is not an unfamiliar category of spending. Delhi's official Samagra Shiksha planning document for 2020–21 explicitly included annual maintenance of school buildings and toilets within the composite school grant. Its ordinary enrolment-linked grant bands ran from ₹25,000 to ₹1 lakh, with a separate provision for very small schools. Those historical amounts are not a current price schedule. They show that local upkeep already has an administrative home.
The next improvement should be practical. Each school needs a clearly defined repair allowance, a short list of eligible work and an accessible roster of competent tradespeople. A dated fault register should show when a problem was reported, who authorised the work and whether the facility became usable. Receipts matter; a photograph alone cannot establish workmanship.
Local discretion carries risks. Purchases can be split to evade limits, familiar suppliers favoured and superficial repairs repeated. Published spending summaries and sampled checks should catch these failures without requiring prior permission for every replacement washer. Structural damage and electrical hazards must still go to qualified personnel through an urgent escalation route.
Districts should compare the time between a reported fault and a working facility, including cases waiting for funds. A grant sanctioned on paper cannot tighten a loose fitting.
Schools are places of learning, not procurement offices. Give them enough reliable authority to fix modest problems promptly, and judge the arrangement by safe, functioning classrooms.
