Lack of water supply in toilets, unfenced school campuses, inadequate support from the State government and local bodies have made the premises of many government schools in the southern suburbs of Chennai an unpleasant place for students and teachers. While some government institutions are model ones, many need a lot of care, investment and regular maintenance. A case in point is the Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Guduvanchery. A few classrooms here have become public toilets for miscreants and residents of neighbouring localities. Students and teachers in adjacent blocks are forced to live with the stench. In the absence of a compound wall, residents enter the premises after sunset and dirty the place. Damaged toilets and lack of water supply forces students to urinate in the open. School Sanitation Committees have been constituted in government primary and middle schools under the Total Sanitation Campaign of the District Rural Development Agency and Ministry of Rural Development. Students from different classes take turns to be members of five sub-committees on classroom cleanliness, personal hygiene, toilet maintenance, water conservation and environment protection. Student members of these committees have to ensure that other students are in neat turnout, have their nails chopped, ensure clean classrooms and that the entire school premises are neat and green. Students of the toilet maintenance committee have to ensure adequate water, toiletries and cleaning gadgets. The committee's members have to make sure that students who visit the toilets clean them properly, the officials said, while making it clear they need not clean toilets after being used by other students. Such committees are active in many rural and urban pockets in the southern suburbs of Chennai with motivated students, dedicated teachers and staff of TSC of St.Thomas Mount Block coordinating and monitoring regularly. But in many others, the condition of toilets is abysmal. Headmasters of government schools in the suburbs attributed the problems mainly to poor maintenance of buildings and lack of water supply. Rural local bodies do not attach importance to school sanitation and water supply to toilets. The Government Middle School in Medavakkam is right next to the village panchayat office, but the plight of the toilet and lack of water supply has not drawn the attention of staff of the Department of Rural Development, a member of the Parent Teacher Association regretted. A retired Block Resource Teacher Educator of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, who preferred not to be named, said there is an urgent need to create a mechanism so that those at the district and State-level are aware of the problems at the grassroots level to take remedial measures.