Roads: With the bad road condition and an incomplete infrastructure, Sergithang Primary School in Tsriang has not been able to provide boarding facilities for its students who walk for three hours everyday to school.

The school was expected to start providing boarding facilities for 120 students after the mid-term break.

Principal Tshering said he has informed the Department of Roads about the road’s condition after they could not transport the school’s furniture last week.

“We had to unload the furniture at Tsirangtoe School as the road was not pliable and its condition worsened with monsoon,” he said.

He said that if the road was maintained, the school is ready to start boarding facilities for the needy students.

Junior engineer with the roads department, Karma Phuntsho said that with excavators engaged in clearing the highways, they could not maintain the gewog farm road.

“We give priority to clearing the highway,” he said.

He said maintenance work on the gewog roads will begin this week and there are also plans to blacktop the roads in three gewogs of Sergithang, Phuentenchu and Tsirangtoe.

Deputy chief education officer Pema Thinley said that infrastructure like a multipurpose hall, quarters for caregivers, site development and campus lighting are still being built.

The hostels for 60 boys and 60 girls are however ready.

Sergithang is about 45 kilometers away from Damphu.

Principal Tshering said the school has 219 students and boarding facilities would be provided to students coming from far away villages, the economically disadvantaged and the kidu recipients.

Children from Norbugang chiwog and Semdenjong chiwog walk to Sergithang primary school for more than three hours every day while some students stay in makeshift houses near the school.

By Yeshey Dema, Tsirang