Collector’s luncheon meeting with government school students

THOOTHUKUDI

When Collector K. Senthil Raj visited Government Higher Secondary School at Pasuvanthanai in Ottapidaaram union on Friday, the teachers and students might have thought that the Collector would leave the campus after the routine inspection at lightning speed.

However, the Collector took time to interact with the students, tried to understand their living conditions and problems, enjoyed the mid-day meal with them under the shade of the trees and advised them like an elder brother before leaving the school premises.

He asked the students: “Is the quantity of food sufficient?”. “Yes, we even get second serving,” the students replied.

Next he asked: “Are the facilities in the school like drinking water sufficient?”. “Yes”, the students replied in unison. “What about the drinking water supply in your hamlet?”, the next question came from the Collector. “Not bad,” said a student.

“Do you discard the waste from your house properly?,” he asked. While a few gave a satisfactory reply, most of them said they would discard it on the roadside. The Collector appealed to them to manage the waste as suggested in their lessons.

Then the interaction turned towards the academic side. “Have you prepared well for the annual exam? What’s your half-yearly mark?” the Collector asked the boy sitting next to him, who smiled embarrassingly.