Illegal schools flourish, as govt turns a blind eye

Showing uncharacteristic zeal the state education department in April last year went ahead and declared as many as 29 schools illegal in the cityrsquos western zone making them liable to pay Rs 1 lakh as fine and an additional Rs 10000 for each day that they remained open after being blacklisted The government was also to have lodged police complaints against each of the schools But going by MiD DAYrsquos discovery the education departmentrsquos initiative to cleanse the city of illegallyrun sections in these schools ran out of steam fast not a penny of the minimum Rs 29 lakh has been collected by way of fines nor has a single police complaint been lodged against any of the schools Twentynine schools in areas like Malad Goregaon Kandivli Andheri and Borivli were labelled illegal last year by the western zone of the state education department As per existing government rules each school has to cough up Rs 1 lakh as penalty and if it continues to run classes for students of the illegal sections it has to pay an extra Rs 10000 every day The rulebook also says that the education departmentrsquos zonal office is to file a police complaint with the local police station If students continue to attend classes at these schools they may lose scholarships and will not be allowed to appear for any boardlevel exams Having blacklisted schools that havenrsquot followed the rules the education department has itself been lax when it comes to following the rules The only rule they have stuck to is the one that required them to publish an advertisement in a newspaper declaring the school as illegal cautioning parents not to admit their kids there B Mane school education inspectorincharge western zone said ldquoThe rule is to collect Rs 1 lakh from the school as fine once it is declared illegal If the authorities continue to keep the school open despite getting a notice from the education department they will have to pay a fine of Rs 10 000 per day in addition to that A police complaint is also filed against the school According to my knowledge no action has yet been taken on any school in the western suburbs which have been served notices We will decide on the next step when orders from the state government come in before the new academic year beginsrdquo The education department has also been procrastinating when it comes to following up on the matter and checking if the schools have indeed closed their doors to students as per the rules Not shutting shop MiD DAY spoke to several of the blacklisted schools and learnt that they havenrsquot closed down the sections which they have been running illegally They have however submitted papers for getting noobjection certificates and are waiting for the government to revert Mohammed Anis Siddiqui a trustee of Rose Mary English School in Malad which was declared illegal last year said ldquoInstead of destroying the career of students we are ready to pay the full amount of fine that the education department wants We are ready to accept the conditions that they apply But let our school run as we are serving poor students in our locality My school has 500 students studying in Stds I to VII Stds I to III are recognised by the BMC as they fall under the primary section I have applied for recognition for Stds IV to VII and the relevant papers have been submitted We will hopefully get permission before the academic year starts When we got a notice from the department we replied to them submitting all the papersrdquo Sudhakar Sawant a teacher of Good Shepherd School in Goregaon E said ldquoOur school has 200 students and we run it from Stds I to X We have applied for noobjection certificate and are hoping that it gets done soon Itrsquos been four months since we applied for it but we havenrsquot yet received a reply from the state government We were only served a notice at the beginning of last year after which we replied to the departmentrdquo Chandrashekhar Dubey trustee of Holy Mother High School in Kurar Village Malad E said ldquoBecause of political rivalry with a local MLA my school was blacklisted My school is only recognised from Std I to Std VII I am in the process of getting recognition for the secondary sectionrdquo Blacklisted gtgt Young Indian School Jogeshwari E English Medium gtgtu00a0St Rocks High Andheri E English medium gtgtu00a0Ismail High School Goregaon W English medium gtgtu00a0DVM High School Kandivli E Hindi medium gtgtu00a0Shivshakti Vidyalay Kandivli W Hindi medium gtgtu00a0Suvidha Niketan English School Kandivli W gtgtu00a0Bright Light English School Kandivli W gtgtu00a0Sai Academy High School Kandivli W English medium gtgtu00a0Mother Mercy High School Borivli W English medium gtgtu00a0St Maria High School Kandivli W English medium gtgtu00a0Utkarsh Marathi School Malad W gtgtu00a0Holy Spirit High School Malad W English medium gtgtu00a0Students Academy Malad E English medium gtgtu00a0Pranav Vidyamandir English School Goregaon E gtgtu00a0Shri Radhakrishna Vidyamandir Goregaon E English medium gtgtu00a0Saraswati Vidyamandir Malad E English medium gtgtu00a0Good Shepherd English School Goregaon E gtgtu00a0Sir JR High School Malwani Malad W English medium gtgtu00a0Sir DS High School Malad E English medium gtgtu00a0Om Sai Vidyamandir High School Malad W Hindi medium gtgtu00a0Holy Mother High School Malwani Gate No 5 Malad gtgtu00a0AM High School Malad W English Medium gtgtu00a0Holy Mother High School Malad E English medium gtgtu00a0Rose Mary English School Malwani Malad W gtgtu00a0Sharda Vidyamandir Jogeshwari Marathi medium gtgtu00a0Anupa High School Jogeshwari W English medium gtgtu00a0Bulbul High School Jogeshwari W English medium gtgtu00a0Tohin High School Kandivli W English medium gtgtu00a0Limra English school Goregaon E English mediumu00a0