Dear GHMC, don’t poor children deserve education?

Due to GHMC’s ‘covert’ measures, the students of Alpha School, who were evicted twice in the past, are once again faced with displacement to make way for the Rainbow Park.
A makeshift school being run on an open plot in Jubliee Hills Road no 36. The school is run by four teacher.  | Sathya Keerthi
A makeshift school being run on an open plot in Jubliee Hills Road no 36. The school is run by four teacher. | Sathya Keerthi

HYDERABAD: While students across the country were celebrating Children’s Day, 80 odd students were on Wednesday trying to make their way through a pile of garbage, construction debris and mud to enter their makeshift school in an open plot in Jubilee Hills Road No 36.

Due to GHMC’s ‘covert’ measures, the students of Alpha School, who were evicted twice in the past, are once again faced with displacement to make way for the Rainbow Park. The GHMC officials have been dumping trash and garbage at the entrance of the plot-cum-school with an intention to block the entrance.
At the beginning of this academic year, GHMC has issued a notice stating that the school would not be allowed to operate from the land. Post media attention and representations to GHMC and district collector, the school, which provides free education, was allowed to continue operations. Shobha Rani, the founder and one of the teachers of the school, said that after covert notices, GHMC is now resorting to such activities to harass them.

“This dumping activity has been going on for the last two days. Today, older children had to place stones on the mound of garbage to make way for the younger children to enter the compound,” she told Express. When she confronted the park in-charge and the GHMC employee who has been dumping the garbage on the land, they said that they have been instructed to do this. She also made a complaint to GHMC officials but there has been no response from them so far.

DEO unaware of the issue

The district education officer said that she was unaware of the issue. “The school cannot run like this. We will shut the school but the children could be relocated to the nearest school. We have recently re-opened a school in Shaikpet that had been shut down to relocate students from a school in Ventakagiri Colony. After inspection we can find out what best can be done for them,” said B Venkata Narasamma, DEO, Hyderabad.   

Shobha had started the school back in 2000 in a slum but was evicted from there by the GHMC whose officials razed the shed. Unfazed, she then set up her school on the footpath only to be evicted once again a few years later because it was obstructing the convoy of N Chandrababu Naidu, the then chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh.

Fall in numbers

Shobha, along with her 150 students and seven teachers, moved to a nearby vacant plot. “It was a park, with a compound wall and a gate. We cleaned up the place that is filled up with garbage and filth. But we continued to hold classes for children because I know these children will end up wasting their lives if there is no one to tell them what is right and what is wrong,” she said. The ongoing tussle between GHMC and the school has already resulted in fall in the number of students from 150 to 80 from this academic year. The school runs a bridge course for children of daily wage labourers, domestic workers and drivers who are then admitted directly in class five in government schools. “Since the nearest school is in Madhapur or Borabanda, parents neither have the means nor the willingness to send their children to far off schools,” she said.

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The New Indian Express
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