Hyderabad: Flanked by a pan shop, a water camp and a shed selling bottled petrol, and hidden behind large posters of political leaders, a building in Tolichowki hardly bears any semblance to a Government Primary School.
While it doesn’t look like one, over 300 children and eight teachers and headmasters are trying to keep the school operational despite the disturbances over the last two years now.
Recently, blasting of small rocks for civic works and JCB operations during the day has been a constant pain for the staff and students of the Government Primary School (Telugu and Urdu medium) in Tolichowki.
The school operates from 9 am to 3.30 pm and adjacent to the school, works are on in full swing throughout the day. “Classes are being disrupted since nearly two years now. First there was the flyover work, then the flyover’s work on the other side and now this work adjacent to the school. All we request is to stop the work during working hours,” said the headmaster of the school.
“The school authorities had considered alternative sites to run the school, but the locations were too far away. Fearing drop-outs, we are continuing here,” a senior staff member said.
“At times, children can’t even hear our voice. Dust and construction materials keep coming into the campus. Even kids as young as those in classes I and II are getting dust allergy and headaches due to the sound,” said a staff member, adding, “Despite repeated pleas, the local authorities have remained complacent about the issue.”
Apart from this, a part of the school which was demolished for the flyover, still needs to be rebuilt.
“GHMC built half of the staircase and halted the remaining work citing lack of funds. There are overhead tanks but no water connection and neither is there any sump anymore. We had proper facilities prior to the construction of the flyover, but now everything is in a state of mess,” the headmaster of the school said.
The longstanding problems, which no one wants to comment on, meanwhile are the shops surrounding the school.
If one observes for only five minutes, one will see people who visit the shops near the school, smoke, spit or urinate near the walls. “These shops shouldn’t be there, but we are too scared to get into the hassle of getting them removed,” a staff member of the school said.
Tolichowki in bad shape
The entire Tolichowki stretch has been dug up in the last three months. Works of the second flyover in this area are on in full swing along with laying of pipelines for Krishna Phase III.
A 1 km stretch from the Galaxy Theatre towards Gachibowli is so bad that it takes more than 20 minute to traverse. While at some places the work is complete, re-carpeting of the roads hasn’t happened or only one side of the road has been laid, complain residents.
The stretch from Brindavan Colony was dug up nearly two months ago. Nearly 10 feet wide pits were dug in front of the apartment on the main road. The pit was around four feet deep at places and water kept stagnating in the pit. The residents finally filled the pit with gravel and sand as a makeshift arrangement.
“No officer came to address the problem despite complaints. When we raised a grievance with GHMC and chased them for a week, they finally assigned it to a contractor. He tarred half of the width of the road and didn’t turn up after that. While one half has a tar road, the other half is broken. We have to park the vehicles outside the apartment as there is no way the car can cross the four feet deep pits,” said Mr Syed Waseem, a resident of Brindavan Colony.
