NAGAPATTINAM: Unlike for others, going to school is a tiresome exercise for most students in Nambiyar Nagar, a fishing village under the Nagapattinam municipality. With no government bus operating through the area, roughly 500 students from the 1,300 families who are from economically weaker sections depend on financially burdensome auto-rickshaws or trudge to schools, which are located 1 to 3 km away, carrying heavy bags.
Unable to afford auto fare, which comes to around Rs 1,000 per person per month, a few parents have shifted their wards to nearby government-aided schools, where they would walk for nearly 1.5 km.
S Dhivyasri, a class 11 student of the government-aided Natarajan Dhamayanthi higher secondary school, and her brother, who studies in class 8, walk 1.5 km to school. “The roads are damaged, and walking on such roads carrying heavy school bags gives us shoulder pain. We get fatigued just as we enter school,” she said.
Dhivyasri’s mother enrolled the children in the aided school because the family could not afford to spend Rs 2,000 on auto rickshaw to send them to the government higher secondary school located 2.5 km away.
For students from economically weaker sections who are studying at Nambiyar Nagar Municipality Middle School, pursuing education after class 8 is a costly affair due to the lack of government transport, as government schools are nearly 2.5 km away.
“I have to pursue education in a government higher secondary school as given my family circumstances, but my parents will have to pay for autorickshaw charges, which they could instead spend on my tuition,” said M Bhavadharani, an eighth-standard student studying at the municipal school.
The students added that the transport difficulties could also affect their opportunity to continue higher secondary education at government schools and avail themselves of the 7.5% reservation for professional courses. Students said their parents were struggling to meet the expenses and, in some cases, were forced to borrow money. Several private school students and college students too said they face similar issues.
Parents said cycles were yet to be distributed to current year school students, and even those who received them in the past preferred to walk because of the poor road conditions.
In May last year, the students submitted a petition to officials seeking a government bus service. Subsequently, transport department officials held an inspection, but the bus service remains elusive.
A senior official from the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) said he would look into the issue. District Collector K J Praveen Kumar told TNIE that he would look into arranging a bus service for the students.
