The municipal corporation school at Munjhmahuda area has only one big classroom. The four walls of the room have been blackened and work as black board. Throughout the day,students of different standards sit under its roof with their backs to each other. The situation has been the same for years. On Tuesday,residents of Munjhmahuda slum took out a rally to the commissioners office demanding better infrastructure for their children. For over 17 years,this one room has been the only school for children of this pocket,and the municipal school board has been repeatedly promising to acquire a new building to replace it. No serious action has yet been taken. The school has no infrastructure. While the roofs leak during the monsoon,there is no toilet facility and students go to the banks of Vishwamitri river for the purpose, said Atul Gamechi,a local activist. With classes of different standard being conducted in different corners under the same room,children are obviously distracted. The municipal corporation seems to take no action in this regard at all, he said. The residents have given a weeks time to the corporation,following which they plan to close down the school if no measures are taken. There is a long-running dispute related to the school. It runs in a trust-donated room and although we have tried to shift to other places,but neither the VMC nor the collector owns any property in the area, said Mehul Zaveri,chairman of Vadodara Municipal School Board. We had earlier asked the students to shift to municipal schools at Atladra or Manjalpur area and were trying hard to provide bus facility as well. But nothing could materialise. Our hands are tied, he added.
