“If you don’t learn to tie your own hair, I’ll cut it,” warns Dhangowriamma Naidu, 41 as she sticks bob-pins above her 13-year-old’s ears to hold the hair before plaiting it. This picture of domestic bliss is playing out opposite Akbarally’s at Flora Fountain, where the Naidus have been pavement dwellers for 17 years.

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Hair tied, Bharati begins packing and we notice she’s in Class IV. “She’s failed many times. Her 12-year-old sister Swati has reached Class IV too. Both struggle to read,” complains the mother, who is herself educated only up to Class VIII.

As pavement dwellers, the biggest hurdle these girls face in their education are the repeated raids by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which demolishes the temporary hovel that they put up for the night, and takes away all their belongings – including the textbooks and stationery supplied to them by BMC itself.

“During raids to clear footpaths, despite our pleas, they pick up the children’s bags too. My daughters are left without any books,” complains their father Perumar Kumar Naidu, 42.

While the BMC-run school they go to gives them a satchel, uniforms and study materials, these are issued only once. “I shell out at least Rs500 after every raid to buy bags and books for my daughters. I want them to study so that they’ll have a chance at a better life,” says Perumar.

The girls also complain about having to copy notes again and again from classmates in new notebooks. “The teachers scold us if we go without complete notebooks. So till we have all our study material in order, we skip school,” explains Bharati.

Manohardas municipal school is literally a five minute stroll from the headquarters of the richest civic body in the country. The four storey building has 22 classrooms and 136 students.

The number of teachers is a problem though. Some classes simply don’t have any.

Such classes are clubbed with others. Bharati’s teacher, Vijay Kumar Dombe, for example, has been away for a month. “He’s had an accident,” offers the principal, Arun Gaikwad.

Both Gaikwad and administrative officer Manohar Gadhri are aware that students like Bharati and her sister keep losing study material to the BMC’s anti-encroachment squads.

“Since almost 70% of our students come from families of pavement dwellers, we hear this often. We have informed the local ward officer, but beyond that we can’t do anything,” offers Gaikwad.

Suparna Mody of the Akanksha Foundation, which is partnering the Stayfree DNA I Can Women’s Half Marathon aimed at raising awareness about education of the girl child told DNA, “First the lack of facilities and teachers makes the school a cumbersome experience. Then authorities use that to show falling numbers and close or merge schools, when the need of the hour is more and better schools so that no child is deprived of what is her or his right.”