5 yrs into A’bad city limits, Juhapura finally gets a municipal school

Juhapura, Ahmedabad's biggest Muslim ghetto, will finally get its first municipal school, an urban health centre and an anganwadi kendra, if one goes by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's 2013-14 budget ratified Tuesday.

In fact, state's Revenue and Urban Development Minister Anandiben Patel performed bhoomipujan for this school in Sankalit Nagar area in the heart of Juhapura last Tuesday.

The plot identified for these facilities is in the E block of Juhapura, known as Sankalit Nagar, where a survey is on for its first town planning scheme.

Juhapura was among those areas incorporated into city limits in 2007 and comes under the Sarkhej ward where all the three corporators belong to Congress.

Municipal Commissioner Guruprasad Mohapatra told The Indian Express, "In the absence of a town planning scheme in the area resulting in lack of defined roads and drainage system, these facilities like school, anganwadi kendra and urban health centre could not come up. The land where these facilities are coming up belongs to AMC and was given for some educational purposes to the state government, which is no more the case. This land was cleared of the old building and also the encroachment."

Mohapatra said the survey for the TP scheme was over and expected to be submitted to the government by year-end.

In the absence of any municipal school in the area, parents are forced to send their wards to nearby private schools. "I have left the school and now joined a madrassa near my house," said a 12-year-old residing near the new school site who dropped out of school after Class VII.

When contacted, chairman of Municipal School Board Jagdish Bhavsar said, "The AMC along with Municipal School Board is expanding its facilities in city's new west zone."

Corporation officials said the announcement and bhoomipujan ceremony was kept a low-key affair.

... contd.

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