Ballarpur Industries Limited closure leaves school in the lurch

WARANGAL: The closure of the Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT) pulp factory in Kamalapur of Mangapet mandal in Jayashankar Bhupalapalli district has not just affected the lives of workers but also affiliated institutions like the medical centre and an English medium school run by the management.

Repeated efforts by the Telangana government to revive the factory have failed with the management unwilling to reopen the factory.

The Thapar Vidya Vihar was established in 1982 to provide free education to the children of the factory employees. The school is run by APR Educational Society, under the BILT group. The employees and the teachers of the school were paid by the company management since its establishment. The children of the staff were not charged any fee, though the children of outsiders were charged a nominal sum. Along with the factory workers, the school teachers were given free residential quarters with electricity and other facilities.

Since the closure of the factory in 2014, the school with 325 students is in a pathetic situation. The 18 teachers and six non-teaching staff have not been receiving salaries for the past 38 months.

“After the factory shut down in 2014, the management decided to close down the school. But in 2015, the management asked us to continue running the school, after promising us that our salaries would be paid,” said T.V.V. Maruthi, the principal of the school.

“At the end of every academic year, the management asked us to continue with the school and made the same promise of paying our salaries. But to date, our wages remain unpaid. We somehow managed the school and our families with the student fees and some outside funds the school received,” he said.