CHENNAI: The 421 families set to be evicted from Navalar Nedunchezhian Nagar at Chintadripet, have made it clear that they are not against evictions. Their demand is simple: Give our students time till the end of the school year.
Under the Cooum restoration project, authorities have begun evicting families since Wednesday to be resettled to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board tenements at Perumbakkam.
“They will demolish my house in an hour or two so we have no choice but to go. But, I’ve told my parents I’ll continue in the same school here even if the travel is hectic,” said Eshwar Gowtham, a student of Standard VII in a private middle school at Chintadripet. For students of Standards X and higher secondary classes, the groups that they had opted for at Chintadripet are not available in schools in and around Perumbakkam.
Rajeswari R, a student of Standard X said, “Groups like History-Geography-Economics- Computer Science and even typewriting are available in my school now. When we asked, they said these groups are unavailable in the schools there” (Perumbakkam).
Students planning to opt for the Physics-Chemistry-Botany-Zoology group may also be forced to take the Physics-Chemistry-Maths-Biology group, the only available alternative in Government school at Semmencherry. This school, according to sources, already has a strength of 569.
Ahead of the evictions, around 50 representatives from the locality were taken to visit the schools in and around Perumbakkam. They visited three government schools and one Tamil medium private school.Apart from the unavailability of groups of children’s choice, the major concern for the residents here is the lack of English medium schools.
According to an official who did not wish to be identified, details of students and their schools have been documented through ‘Form 2’ to ensure seamless transition to educational institutions in the resettled area. The form, through 25 questions, collects details of the door numbers, addresses of the settlements, Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) and family cards. “The number of students in Standards X and XII 12 were found to be a few in number. We received orders to clear the settlement back in 2015 but we waited since we wanted the residents to be fully convinced before they left,” the official said.