TNI Bureau: The Supreme Court today directed the Centre and all State governments to provide basic infrastructure, including drinking water and toilets, in all schools within six months.

A bench headed by justice KS Radhakrishnan fixed the time limit and asked the governments to take necessary steps to provide the basic facilities in schools across the country.

The bench said that all its previous directions pertaining to providing infrastructure should be implemented within the scheduled period.

On October 18 last year, the apex court had directed all states and union territories to build toilets, particularly for girls, in all government schools.

The court passed the order on a PIL seeking its direction to Centre and state governments to provide basic facilities of drinking water and toilets in schools.

The court also observed that not providing the infrastructure was a violation of the right to free and compulsory education of children guaranteed under Article 21-A of the Constitution.

The apex court had earlier stated that it was imperative that all schools provide toilet facilities, as empirical researches indicated that wherever toilet facilities are not provided in schools, parents are reluctant to send their children, particularly girls to schools.