According to School Board Chairman Hitendra Chudawala, the board was forced to take this step as the number of students studying in these schools had gone down in the last 10 years. The situation, he pointed out, was so bad that in one particular school there were only 24 students whereas there were three teachers to teach them.

The School Board, as a solution, also decided to merge such schools with others nearby. All those schools with less than 200 students on the rolls were merged with other schools. Staff members too were accommodated in other schools.

According to Chudawala, two factors responsible for the closure of civic schools were the craze for private schools and migration of the people from the central zone area to new non-congested localities. Even private schools in the central zone were facing the same problem, he claimed, citing the example of a private school which was forced to close down under similar circumstances.

Ironically, while schools in the central zone had to be closed for lack of students, the number of students in surrounding areas like Udhna, Bhestan, Katargam, Fulpada, Varachha and Kapodara was increasing. So much so that in some of these schools there were more than 4000 students. ``There we are opening new schools to accommodate students,'' Chudawala said.

Now with the schools closed down, the property owners, who had rented it at nominal rents to SMC before independence, have been demanding that the land be restored to them.

Though the School Board passed a resolution asking the SMC to restore the land to the owners, the standing committee, the final authority in this matter, is reportedly indecisive. Rumours had it that some of the standing committee members had bought the properties, located at prime locations, at throwaway rates, so that it could be sold to builders for profit.