Mumbai has lost over 100 municipal schools since 1995

The city has lost over 100 municipal schools since 1995, according to a public interest litigation filed in the Bombay high court. The PIL stems from the closure of a BMC-run Urdu school at Khadia Street, Byculla.

While the BMC has cited its reasons for closure of the schools, a division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice SJ Kathawalla has sought the report from BMC on the closed municipal schools, by January 20, 2011.

The PIL was filed by Mirza Naheed Baig, a Byculla resident. His advocate AN Mulla said on Thursday that the BMC had shut down a number of vernacular medium schools rendering many children without education. “All parents cannot afford to send their children to English medium schools,” Mulla said.

The PIL states that residential and commercial pre-mises have been constructed in the school premises.

While the population in the city has doubled over the last two decades, the number of civic schools has not increased in tandem with it, Baig contended. The closure of vernacular medium schools, he stated, amounts to “discrimination on the ground of language, religion, race, caste and place of birth.” He also submitted a list of 32 Urdu schools that were closed over the years.

The school in question had been running for 80 years and after the trust sold the property to a private builder, a nine-storey building now stands in its place, Baig said.

BMC’s counsel Preeti Purandare had submitted an affidavit to the court stating that the schools were closed down on account of buildings being dilapidated or inadequate students owing to people shifting to the suburbs. While the school had 534 students in 1989, in 2008 it had 212, BMC’s affidavit states.