Bhubaneswar: The school and mass education department have asked all the schools to conduct hazard-hunting exercise immediately.

Hazard-hunting exercise is a tested method to identify risks, both inside and outside the school precincts, that may threaten the safety of the school community.

During the exercise, hazards such as deep potholes, incomplete or no boundary walls, contaminated water sources, absence of toilets, open well or pond within boundary, open live electric wires and connections and fast moving traffic near schools would be identified.

A video-conferencing was held between the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the state government where the latter was asked to initiate the school safety audit by adopting the hazard hunting exercise.

The district education officers (DEOs) have been asked to submit a comprehensive report to the department at the earliest.

"Based on the report, necessary action will be taken to address the issue," said B.S. Poonia, state project director, Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority.

The state will send the details on the methodology adopted to conduct safety audits and the actions taken on the findings to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) at the earliest.

Social activists feel the exercise will help in mitigating risks to certain extent.

Asit Behera, working for an international NGO here, said: "Simple mitigation measure like securing and anchoring equipment and furniture, having provision for locked panels for housing electrical mains and repair of structural cracks in building are the basic steps. These do not require much funding and can come with awareness."

The school and mass education department has set July 31 deadline for the rural water supply and sanitation wing to make provisions for tube wells or laying pipes to supply drinking water in government schools that lacks the facilities. In all, 131 government schools in the state do not have drinking water facilities and 4,880 have no potable water on the campus.

Suspended

The headmaster of Barigaon Upgraded Primary School in Keonjhar was suspended after a Class-IV girl student died of snakebite in the classroom.