Displaced by floods, rajoli villagers fight for survival
90 % of 500-odd houses in Rajoli had collapsed,
Rajoli suffered a huge loss on account of damage to weavers’ units
Rahul
RAJOLI (Mahabubnagar dt.): Hundreds of poor families are literally on the road in this tiny village as they have pitched tents made of sarees after their houses collapsed following the floods ten days ago.

A bumpy drive to Rajoli from Shantinagar on a gravel topped road over 10 kms also saw a number of homeless

The aftermath: Villagers of Rajoli in Mahabubnagar district scrambling for relief material. – Photo P.V. SIVAKUMAR

 families moving out from the former with their belongings in bullock carts and packed auto-rickshaws and tractors. A large number of others were sitting by the roadside helplessly while children greeted every passing vehicle with outstretched hands, seeking alms.

People both at the camp where the tents have come up and elsewhere on the road are being provided food and water by voluntary agencies but they are directly exposed to sun as the sarees which they have stuck out to sticks to take cover hardly offer them any relief. The camp mostly comprises Scheduled Caste people from Rajoli and Thummanapalle villages which were submerged by the water of Tungabhadra river, less than half-a-kilometre away.
The water entered the villages after ripping open the earthen bund of Sunkesula barrage for nearly a kilometre.

There is chaos in Rajoli whenever vehicles drive into the village to drop food, clothes and water packets. There is a mad rush of people who try to snatch the packets from the hands of delivery boys. The crew of a mini-bus despatched by an organisation had a tough time in preventing the crowd from entering the vehicle on Monday. The problems of those who drove in an open-topped van with the food material shortly afterwards was worse.

The debris of houses that collapsed stare visitors to Rajoli where destruction to property is the highest in the district. Every other house was found falling here. The District Superintending Engineer of Housing Suresh told The Hindu that ninety per cent of the 500-odd houses in the village had collapsed. Only pucca houses stood up to the flooding while all the houses with mud and mortar were razed to ground. The village which is popular for handloom weaving also suffered a huge loss on account of damage to weavers’ units.

A stream ahead of the village is the source of water for people living in pucca houses to wash their clothes and utensils.
Source : The Hindu, 14 Oct 2009

Nearly 5,000 handloom weavers who lost their looms face mounting debts
G Arun Kumar | TNN

Rajoli (Mahbubnagar): For the 5,000-odd weavers of this town, the last straw came in the form of nature’s fury like they have never seen before. In a matter of a few hours on that fateful October 2, the gushing waters destroyed their handlooms and homes and increased their debts many-fold.

“I cannot take this anymore, I want to die,” wailed 60-year-old Vanka Lakshmanna, whose three handlooms were washed away in the floods. This more or less sums up the morbidity that the floods left behind in the weavers of this mudstone house town just off the Raichur main road on the banks of the Tungabhadra river in Vaddapally mandal of district.

With their livelihood destroyed and forced to live on the streets, the weavers see no light at the end of the tunnel. Agnoor Babu had 8 Turling looms (where silk saris are woven) and two regular ones. All of them were destroyed or washed away in the gushing waters of the flood fury. “I have five daughters, the eldest of whom I got married six months ago. I have already incurred a debt of Rs 40,000. With no way to earn money, how am I going to feed me family, let alone marry off my other four daughters,” cried Agnoor Babu even as his family members tried to console him.

Savitramma, an old weaver woman, is still to come to grips with the reality post-floods. In a state of shell-shock, all she can do is stand next to her wrecked home and lament. “The atmosphere is so hellish that there is not a single family that has the courage to fight on. What can the state government do to give us back our lives,” asked weaver Bandi Krishna, who lost all of his four handlooms.

Even before the floods washed away their livelihoods, most of the weavers were in the debt range of Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000. “For you city folks, it might sound like a very small sum. But not for us. On an exceptionally good day, we tend to make Rs 100 a day and there are at least 4-5 mouths that each of us have to feed,” said Mohd Shabbir, a 17-year-old weaver who looked much withered for his age.

Since the floods, the weavers as well as the other residents of Rajoli have been having a tough time getting food and drinking water. On Tuesday, many of the residents were seen converging at a huge neem tree at the town centre which got submerged in the hope of fishing out some debris to build temporary shelters. “The old and the sick are not able to take it. Many of them are suffering from diarrhoea,” said Hanumanthu, a rescue worker.

Understandably, Rajoli’s deputy sarpanch Marlavedi Sekhar is a worried man. “The floods have washed away our lives, broken many families and decimated our meagre earnings. But the real tragedy that could unfold over the next few weeks is suicides by the weavers. I hope for once, the district administration takes preventive steps rather than pay compensation afterwards,” he said.

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Village is renowned for its handloom products
S.Venugopal
RAJOLI (Mahabubnagar district): The unprecedented flood has taken the sheen out of this village located on the banks of Tungabhadra river.

A rich village with about 40,000 population, Rajoli is acclaimed for its handloom products which are in good demand. The flood that ravaged the village on October 1 has, however, shattered the lives of the weavers who lost their looms as well as houses.

In ruins: A completely damaged weaving workshop at Rajoli village in Mahabubnagar district due to the recent floods

Only 10 per cent of the 4,000 odd dwellings withstood the destruction unleashed by Tungabhadra, which was on spate. With the houses and looms that brought them repute within the country and abroad shattered by the river’s fury, the village now appears a dumpyard of dead bodies of cattle, pigs and dogs with slush left by the receding water still continuing to obstruct free walk of the streets.

Thukaram, one of the three MPTC members from the village and a proud owner of 70 looms, lost all his equipment as well as stock worth Rs. 70 lakh. And, the story of dozens of others is no different. “With all the property and belongings lost, there is no scope for us to survive,” said Rumala Rukmini, a handloom weaver who lost her eight looms and house.

Even as the reality is yet to dawn on many, residents are leaving to take shelter in their relatives’ houses in other towns and villages.

“We have lost our house as well as property. How can we live here in such circumstances?” lamented Netha Venkatesh (40).

Vaddepally ZPTC member Srinivasulu wanted the authorities concerned to keep the disaster in view and ensure that the entire village was relocated to a higher altitude where the residents were not affected in the event of such calamities.
source: The Hindu, 7 Oct 2009

A positive, never-say-die attitude helps slum children survive and emerge victorious despite, and not because of, government moves to rehabilitate them. TOI takes a look at what life in the slums of Hyderabad involves

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Relocation: A flawed concept

Hyderabad: Even as the world wakes up to the living condition of slum dwellers in India, courtesy ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and agencies flock Dharavi in Mumbai to develop it, the plight of slum residents in Hyderabad is only deteriorating, rue activists. They say that the “proactive” attempts made by the Andhra Pradesh government towards “altering” the lives of these people have only proved detrimental to slum dwellers, as the government is successfully alienating them from the rest of the city.

There are 1,210 notified slums in the city, of which an estimated 100 are under threat of relocation, while a few have already been shown the door, locked out of the city in a suburb with no nearby school or job options for slum dwellers.

The central government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was started to remove slums in the state and rehabilitate slum dwellers, but most social workers say that the programme has done more harm than good. On the pretext of rehabilitation, the powerful “real-estate lobby”, in order to grab land in the city, packs off slum-dwellers to far-flung corners of the city. The impact of such moves is the most serious on children, they say.

Relocation, as Rajesh Prabhakar, state manager of CRY, Andhra Pradesh notes, is not only a demolition of dwellings, but also of lives and the worst affected are children who are driven into child labour due to lack of other opportunities.

“This scheme that is meant to provide better conditions for the underprivileged has only accelerated the drop-out rate amongst slum children. The drive for relocation has led to slum dwellers being forcibly evicted from their homes to obscure areas which have neither basic facilities like schools for children nor transport facilities which allow them to travel to schools in other areas. Under such conditions, most children who earlier went to school have no choice but to drop-out,” explains RTI activist Umesh Varma giving an example of a relocation site in Afzalnagar where a number of children have stopped going to school due to lack of transport facilities.

Activists also say that with relocation done in a haphazard manner, the inhabitants of slums are suddenly uprooted and relocated to unfamiliar places. Children are forced to leave their schools midterm, with no one responsible for getting the slum children admitted to other schools.

The lack of job opportunities for parents in these new locations is also a major concern, as they are often thrust into extreme situations where they have no option but to send their children to look for work elsewhere instead of educating them, says Prabhakar. “Work is difficult to come by in these remote areas so the parents obviously need extra pairs of hands to earn their livelihood. At times like these, they cannot afford to think about education,” he says.

The whole idea of relocation, activists say is a sugar-coated term to cover up a crime of the “land-mafia”. If incidents of eviction of this class to the periphery of the city in the name of rehabilitation continue, the dropout rate amongst slum children will soon reach 100 per cent and the kids will be exposed not only to child labour but also to other physical and social abuse, say activists.

OUR REAL HEROES

Hyderabad: Watching Jamal hop into speeding trains, land in unknown cities and take up odd jobs to earn a meal, in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, was like revisiting his own days as a child for Oddepally Rajaiah. Though unlike Jamal, Rajaiah opted to run away from home in Warangal at the age of 10 years, driven by his desire to travel around the world, the rest of his story is much the same. Today with a Masters in Social Work, Rajaiah claims that his success is as sweet as his ‘brother’ Jamal’s and equally hardearned.

Oddepally Rajaiah

There are several rags-to-riches stories that Hyderabad is teeming with. Stories like that of Rajaiah who did not became a crorepati overnight, but landed a job that now earns him a princely sum of Rs 13,000 every month. Or that of a domestic child worker R Sridevi who was rescued and later went on to become a national handball player. Then there are more success stories of other deprived children who lived their dream of becoming an “officer” when they landed a government job.

While R Sridevi of Warangal was forced to take up a job as domestic help at an early age to support her old parents and younger brother and give up her love for the game of handball, Rajaiah left home driven by his love for travel. “I would hop into trains randomly, pose as a garbage boy as I never had money for tickets, and get down anywhere I wanted. I have been to Vijaywada, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and finally Hyderabad where my life changed completely,” says the 26-yearold street boy turned social worker.

Having spent much of his childhood washing dishes at roadside eateries or begging at temple steps and sleeping on railway platforms, Rajaiah finally found an NGO-run shelter in the city, wherein he was also encouraged to resume education. A class V dropout, Rajaiah went on to clear his class X and XII, securing 84 per cent in the latter. He then opted for social work as his subject for graduation.

While Rajaiah was able to pursue his dream, for others such as Sridevi, juggling time between domestic work and handball practice was a daily challenge. She would practice in the evenings, after working all day. Her talent was soon noticed and the maid servant later went on to become a national handball champion with aid from various organisations. Sridevi is now reportedly flooded with job offers from different places and is a poster girl of sorts among the underprivileged girls in AP.

Born nearly two decades before Rajaiah or Sridevi, S Israel’s story is no different. Taking the first train out of his slum in Nellore district, the seven-year-old landed on the streets of Kolkata with no money or education. Israel was a rag picker, but with the help of kind soul who took notice of the child, was given both work and education. The 44-year-old now works with the Geological Survey of India.

But each of these success stories are riddled with various hurdles. In the case of Rajaiah, the used clothes that he wore (from the local resource management programme of the NGO) and the broken English that he spoke in was enough to alienate him from the rest of his class in college. At one time, he had even decided to run away from there, but stuck on realising that there were more serious issues in life than bad clothes. Predictably, he is proud of that he stayed on. “It’s been almost two years since I started working and I am greatly satisfied,” he says, adding that working for people from deprived backgrounds like his gives him immense satisfaction.

source: Times of India 25 Feb 2009

Exercise meant to make the delivery system more accountable 
Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD: What makes the post-matric students’ scholarships roost for almost a year before they reach the beneficiaries while all government employees get paid immediately on the next day of the budget? The question by Principal Secretary of Social Welfare V. Nagi Reddy was not as much in anticipation of an answer, as it was to ignite inquisitiveness in the young social auditors.

MAKING A POINT: A student delegate shares his views at the social audit on government programmes.

“Bills of both salaries and scholarships get cleared in the same budget. I was expecting you to demand the reason for the delay in disbursement of the latter,” he said at the Public Hearing of the Social Audit under the aegis of Backward Classes Welfare Department on Saturday.

Three colleges
It was conducted in three volunteering colleges — Sri Sarada Women’s Degree College, Nalla Mall Reddy College of Engineering and Mahbubia Junior College for Girls. Students took active part in the audit with support from a non-governmental organisation CARPED. Questions about delay in release of instalments to colleges and their laxity in turn, difference in scholarship amounts from student to student, new mode of reimbursement of tuition fee, physical verification of certificates, delay in submission of acquaintance registers, and others were raised.

Director of BC Welfare K. Sunitha said the social audit concept was adopted from Department of Rural Development after instances of misappropriation surfaced in Mahabubnagar and Medak districts.

The exercise was meant to make the delivery system more accountable and 35 students from the three colleges underwent a three-day training programme conducted by the Centre for Good Governance in audit preparation.

source : The Hindu, 22 Sep 2008
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/22/stories/2008092259170400.htm

Mon, Aug 25 08:29 AM

Sydney, Aug 25 (DPA) Australian couples risk having to give up adopted children whom Indian authorities fear were stolen from their biological parents, Canberra officials said Monday.

A spokesman for Attorney General Robert McLelland said the adoptive parents of up to 30 Indian children risked having adoptions revoked.

The Liberal Party’s Brendan Nelson, leader of the opposition in Parliament, said the government had a ‘moral responsibility to do the right thing, and the right thing we would expect in most cases will be to look at returning them to their rightful families’.

Malaysian Social Services (MSS), a private company licensed by the Indian government, was the intermediary in adoptions by Australian couples.

MSS is under investigation by Indian police, who allege the Chennai-based company paid people to steal children, who were then put up for adoption.

According to a report in Time magazine, as many as 120 children stolen in India may have been adopted by overseas parents.

There is no suggestion that adoptive parents in Australia were aware that the children they took in had been stolen from their biological parents.

source  : yahoo news, 25 august 2008

Even as the green concern is peaking in Hyderabad, it is officials guarding forests in the state who are fearing massive clearing of dense, thick jungles. They say the number of people encroaching upon forest land has increased with the implementation of the forest rights act and huge tracts of forest land have already lost their trees. Meanwhile, trees in Hyderabad that may fall to the axe can be successfully translocated, say experts.  

Roli Srivastava | TNN

   There is trouble brewing in the green belts of the state with some districts reporting felling of trees and clearing of forest areas of shrubs and small plantations. Only this time, sounding the green alarm bell are not citizens but authorities who fear that the state’s forests are under a grave threat.
   Forest officials say that over the last one year ever since the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, 2006 is being implemented in the state there is massive threat of encroachment on forest land, the occupation of the land in many cases coupled with tree felling. Officials point out how the act has made many people hopeful of becoming beneficiaries of a similar bountiful law in the later years if they start occupying land now.
   However, activists who had been demanding that such an act be brought out to protect the traditional tribals’ right to forest land given the large scale brutal evictions of indigenous people from forest areas preceding the act, say that the act should be given time to be played out in its entirety before being branded as forest-unfriendly. Besides, they note that certain political parties are taking advantage of the act and tribals who are the rightful owners of land in these areas cannot be deprived of their land for this reason.
   The act, also known as Recognition of Forest Rights Act, states that it recognises the right of scheduled tribes and “other traditional forest dwellers” who have been residing in forests for generations to occupy forest land. Environment activists admit that the act could have led to fewer problems had it not included nontribals.

Felling Trees For Land    Well, even as the man vs nature debate continues, forest officials say they have their hands full of cases of people wanting to own their piece of land even if they are not the rightful owners. While the eligibility to own a piece of forest land, as per the act, is strictly for those tribals who have cultivated this land for bonafide livelihood needs until December 13, 2005 or, in the case of non-tribals, have lived here for three generations. But the demand for this land has gone up so much ever since the act came into being, the officials in some districts such as Adilabad have put a stop on cultivation activity for now.
   ”In Adilabad district alone, 1100 hectares of forest area has been cleared (of trees) and in some places such as Kawal wildlife sanctuary trees are being felled by people in the sanctuary area,” says P Raghuveer, chief conservator of forests, Adilabad. He says that clearing has been rampant over the last one year even as the number of claimants of land has been multiplying with each passing day. He says the forest department has evidence in the form of satellite images taken in 2006 and those taken now that show how parts of the forest have been cleared.
   Other districts reporting similar activity include Khammam, Visakhapatnam and Warangal. Officials explain that some people are even willing to get arrested hoping that once there is a similar act in the future, the police records would serve as valid government documents recording their presence on this land during this time, making them legitimate owners later.
   Officials say that the act coupled with the ‘bhoopuratam’ movement has instigated people to occupy the forest land and in turn fell trees. Besides, they say immense pressure from the government for implementation of this act, given that elections are round the corner and the tribal community benefiting out of this new act is now a potential vote bank. Officials say there are even some unscrupulous elements who have jumped on the bandwagon and are instigating people to start occupying land if they wish to become legitimate owners later and in some cases are even collecting money from them.
   P A V Udaya Bhaskar, chief conservator of forests, Visakhapatnam points out at another crisis looming large on forest lands. The ‘vana samrakshan samitis’, a local group of villagers appointed by the forest department to safeguard its green cover are now being lured by the ‘individual right’ they could exercise on this forest land if they become beneficiaries of the act. So, the protectors who are promised 50 per cent of the earnings made of the forest produce, now wish to have a larger share of the pie, by becoming owners.

Identifying Beneficiaries    Those working for tribal rights say that the act is a progressive one and describe reports of tree felling as ‘sordid’ hampering the proper implementation of the act. “The act came into effect after a decade of struggle.. it gives tribals legal claim on this land which is their traditional land and their right,” says M Bharath Bhushan, anthropologist who specialises in the issues of the Koya tribe. He says that act has come as a saviour for many tribals who were fighting for this right and now finally have possession of it. He points out that there were many who were displaced from their ancestral property because it fell in the forest area and their survival was at stake. “If you consider such cases, the act is a progressive one,” he says.
   Activists say that tribals are not felling trees because of the act but to cater to their survival needs.
   However, there are others who point out the act has blundered in identifying the beneficiaries. While they admit that the indigenous people have benefited from this, the inclusion of “other traditional forest dwellers” the focus of the law is diluted. “Tribals have emotional, psychological and cultural attachments with the forest and they always lived in the forest.. non-tribal forest dwellers do not take livelihood activities in forests by choice,” states the Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network (AITPN) in its article on the act. “We had found that people who had migrated from neighbouring nations too had become landlords (in this forest land). So who is the final beneficiary (of this act),” asks Santosh Sharma, legal officer with AITPN.
   ”Even conservationists have a problem with the act and describe it as the end of forests in India. But people are part of the environment. There can be no wilderness without people,” says Priya Srinivas, an activist with Campaign for Survival and Dignity, an umbrella platform of 250 organisations working on the issue of tribals in forests. Srinivas says that reports of tree felling following the implementation of the act are coming from various parts of the country and there are eight cases pending in the high courts and the Supreme Court to scrap the act to protect forests. “This is fear mongering. Evacuations (of tribals) are still continuing,” she says.
   In Karnataka, for instance, tribals in Nagarahole forests (now notified as the Rajiv Gandhi National Park area), located about 80 km from Mysore, are constantly under the threat of being evicted, despite the presence of this act.
   However, forest officials in AP say that the state government here is in a hurry to give even patta bluebooks to the tribals to establish their ownership credentials for this forest land. Whether tribals continue their traditional practice of symbiotic co-existence with trees remains to be seen. 

Source : TIMES OF INDIA, 30 July 2008

Swati Goel | TNN

   Around two years ago, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) encountered a dilemma while proposal of a new building in their huge campus at Gachibowli came up. Over 100 trees, most of them only a little less than 20 years of age, stood tall right in the centre where the building was to come up. Not to deprive the campus of its greenery huge trees were uprooted and moved a couple of miles away within the campus.
   A similar initiative was undertaken by ICFAI University when they faced the same situation two years ago at their campus in Shankarpally. More than 500 mango, coconut and jack fruit trees were saved by translocating them them just a kilometre away. The banyan tree gracing the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport were brought from a 100-km distant area in Nizamabad and replanted. And all these trees survived.
   So did trees that were translocated by in Jeedimetla industrial area a few years ago by Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd for which it spent close to Rs 20 lakh. All trees were translocated to nearby areas.
   These are no miracle stories but a few incidents where a timely and prudent act of the planners saved many a trees from death. Translocation experts, people behind the success stories, say that the government needn’t dismiss the exercise as expensive or not possible for big trees. “Everything is possible if government is willing. With sensible
planning and coordination among various sectors, this can be done,” says K V Praveen Kumar, horticulturist managing Pragati Green Meadows and Resorts Ltd. He cites how he translocated an 80-year old banyan tree from beyond Mehdipatnam to a 40 km away area near Chilkur Balaji temple about six months ago.

The Translocation Process    The ground around the tree earmarked for translocation is dug up to one metre, which is then filled with organic manure and fertilisers and left for a month.
   The extra roots and branches of the tree are then cut.
   On the target location (where the tree is to be transplanted), nearly the same amount of land is dug and again filled with manure and ‘rooting hormone’, a mixture of organic chemicals that increases root growth by a whopping 2000%.
   A crane is then use to lift and carry the tree from its original spot to the target spot taking care not to harm its bark and roots by covering them with haystack or jute.
   The tree is replanted and the dug land is again filled with manure. Ensuring the daily watering of tree with a good amount (about 100 litres a day) is important. If the tree begins to show new leaves in a matter of 15-20 days and new roots in a month and a half, it indicates the process has been successful.
   Of course, it is a technique undertaken only by horticulture experts to ensure the tree’s survival after the process. While the process sounds simple, it does not guarantee the life of the tree after undergoing through the whole process. By far, most experts record an over 80 per cent survival rate.

Precautions    Experts maintain that 100 per cent success rate can be achieved if requisite precautions are taken. These include, pruning of branches so as not to cause dehydration to the whole tree due to sudden drop of its water content given that the roots have suddenly been removed from earth. Since the cut branches leave those spots in tree exposed to air often leading to fungal infection, its areas need proper application of fungicides within days. Also, after the tree is relocated to a new spot, it is “still weak” and needs good support through poles and pipes, says V Srinivas Raju, proprietor of a horticulture firm.

The Right Age For Translocation    Whether the tree will live after the process or not depends upon a few factors. Although the ideal age of trees suitable for this process ranges from two years to 20 years, it is often seen that younger the tree, more are its chances of a healthy life after. Among the various species, the Ficus and palm trees are
most responsive to this process. Mango and neem are also suited. But citrus trees like lemon do not show good results. But as the city mostly have ficus trees on its roadsides, horticulturists are surprised why the government hasn’t translocated them.

Budget Concerns    The TCS initiative to translocate trees cost them around Rs 3 lakh whereas the GMR banyan venture cost a neat Rs 5 lakh to translocate five trees. ICFAI spent a whopping Rs 1 crore to translocate its 500 trees.
   Clearly, translocation is both time and cost intensive. The cost can be anywhere from Rs 3,000 to Rs 1 lakh and it increases with the age of the tree and distance to which it is to be moved. For instance, a 10-year-old tree moved a kilometre away will cost Rs 3,000 whereas for the same distance, a more than 20-year-old tree will cost Rs 20,000. Bhaskar Rao of Glad farm horticulture narrates an interesting example where an old tree that had its roots in a huge boulder alone cost Rs 1.5 lakh as a lot of extra work and care like breaking the boulder went in the process.
   But as horticulturists put it, its only a small price to pay instead of greater losses. “You cannot put price on a tree. And a tree is not even all about its benefits to us humans. An old tree is home for nearly 300 birds. For every tree cut, many are rendered homeless.”

source : Times of India, 30 July 2008

Your child just lost his last chance to play kho-kho and kabbadi with friends as playgrounds in private schools are no longer a strict condition that school owners have to comply with. Instead, they can now have an indoor game facility or can simply tie-up with a neighbouring municipal park and herd students there each time they wish to jump around. Activists say the government is destroying the concept of holistic education while officials say land is expensive and not all schools can afford a playground. Finally, the children are the ones paying the price for the steep land prices, finds Roli Srivastava

All work and no play may be making Jack a dull boy, but the state government isn’t exactly concerned about it, now that it has exempted private schools from having a playground. A government order issued by the school education department on July 7 gives concessions to private schools from having a playground citing high cost of land in cities as the reason.

The order was issued in response to a public interest litigation filed in the high court by a private educational institution and a group of minority institutions. The litigation challenged the reason why a playground was a mandatory condition to get government affiliation to a school when many government schools did not have one. The high court had then asked the government to offer its suggestions and in response the GO was issued, closing the matter of open spaces in the school premises.

The order is applicable not only for the schools that would come up in the city in future but also to the existing ones operating without play areas. The GO offers schools to have a “reasonable\adequate’’ indoor play area for games such as table tennis, badminton among others. It also suggests that schools tie up with a nearby municipal ground or park or use the playground of another school to meet their students’ recreation needs.
So, students simply running aimlessly in the safety of their school campus would soon be a thing of the past. Predictably, child rights activists and educationists describe such an order “anti-child’’ and even “unconstitutional’’.

Playing Against Children   

Education officials note that they have no choice but to come up with an order like this for two reasons. One, more parents choose private over government schools for their children and two, private schools cannot afford the conditions for open space anymore given the soaring land prices. But then, child rights activists question whether the government is opting for a simpler ‘no playground’ concession as against strengthening the infrastructure of its own schools to boost their popularity among people.

Child rights experts and educationists further note that while the issue raised in the PIL was valid, the government clearly thought of handling it differently. “What stopped them from promising open space for children even in government schools as against depriving even private school students from playgrounds,’’ asks Jagdish Chandra, who sends his six-year-old to a “middleclass’’ private school and is now worried that by the time his newborn starts going to school, there wouldn’t be affordable schools left with a playground.

“The definition of a school is more than a classroom teacher and child. It is the ambience in which children learn,’’ says Shanta Sinha, chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. She says playgrounds are absolutely necessary and that standards for schools across the world make a special mention of these open spaces. “The right to education (bill), which we hope will be passed this monsoon session, will set a national standard for all schools and issue norms, playgrounds will become mandatory,’’ she says.

But Anil Sadgopal, educationist and former dean, faculty of education, Delhi University, isn’t as optimistic. “While the right to education bill makes it compulsory to have a playground, the government has put an asterisk mark under which it says exemption can be given,’’ he says. Perturbed by Andhra Pradesh’s playground GO, Sadgopal says that education is incomplete without a play area. “The government is rushing to promote privatisation of school education,’’ he says, pointing out that in no advanced country can a school be considered without a playground.

Senior educationists further note that while the idea to use municipal grounds or parks is good enough on the face of it, there is a rather crucial concern associated with it: Where are these municipal parks? And does such a park exist in the vicinity of every school? “This (suggesting tie-up with parks) means that urban planning has to be looked into,’’ Sadgopal says. He further notes that this move indicates the complete loss of “holistic education’’ in the country.

“Importantly, they are violating the child’s right to play, which is a very important right,’’ says Asha Bajpai, of the Centre for Socio Legal Studies & Human Rights, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She describes the order unconstitutional, given that India ratifies to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that makes play and leisure every child’s right.

Of Compartments In Education   

With this one GO, child rights activists say, the government has compartmentalised not just the format of education but even the already divided community of students wherein the haves get a playground and the havenots just a classroom.

For the international or the ‘corporate’ schools serving noodles and pastas for lunch a playground is usually taken for granted in most cases. But for the middle class family, the school playground has so far been their best option for their child’s mental and physical recreation what with most nuclear families now living in small flats with little or no open spaces.

“Are you (the government) trying to make a statement that children needn’t play since the cost of land they are playing on is high,’’ questions Isidore Philips, child rights activist and director Divya Disha. He says that children can’t be made to “study in shutters’’ and describes the “matchbox schools’’ that have come up in the city as reeking of the culture of depravation. “Indoor games are no games,’’ he says, commenting on the option given to schools to have an indoor facility if they cannot have a playground. “Children need to jump. You cannot reduce the scope of a child’s development,’’ Philips says, describing the GO as retrograde that is only diluting education.

Besides, activists wonder whether there is any need for more government schools to come up with such a private institution-friendly plan. “Many people are opening schools and it has become a business. The government possibly thinks that the more the institutions, more the number of educated people. But such an order will see maximum implementation in urban areas where there are already enough schools. None of these private players would go to rural areas where schools are actually needed,’’ says a school principal, who did not wish to be identified.

The principal predicts that many apartments would now turn into schools, as is already happening in the city with many schools opening on the second and third floors of commercial complexes. “With obesity among children on the rise, the government should have actually made it mandatory for all schools to have a proper playground and a dedicated physical training period. But with this order, it is simply looking at children studying through the day with no rest,’’ the principal says.

Officially Speaking   

Education department officials maintain that the GO was a practical solution to a problem emerging over and over again with playground turning out to be an unfeasible norm for many private institutions to comply with. While earlier, the government made it mandatory for all schools in urban areas to earmark 1000 square metres for a playground and 2000 square metres in rural areas, the order has revised these conditions.

Now, depending on the student strength of schools, it may earmark area ranging between 500 square metres and 2000 square metres for a primary school and 700 square metres to 2200 square metres for upper primary and secondary schools. However, it gives an option to schools that cannot comply with these conditions offering an indoor sports hall measuring 345 square metres. “The relaxation was given for lack of land,’’ says C B S Venkataramana, principal secretary, school education, citing that in cities such as Hyderabad land rate had touched over Rs 50,000 per square yard. He points out that while some schools were operating without any play area at all, the GO now makes an indoor play area mandatory.

He further states that this kind of a relaxation would only make setting up schools easier, citing the tremendous pressure from parents to enroll their children in private schools. Asked about the mechanism in place to check whether schools were complying with the indoor games condition or that of them tying up with municipal parks, Ramana said inspection of schools would start next month.

After the PIL was filed, a committee was set up to examine the issue and the no-playground decision was taken only after the panel had submitted its report on it.

But critics of the move aren’t convinced and fear it is a sign of things to come. “What next? Exemption from setting up a science lab, a computer lab?’’ asks Sadgopal.

Also, activists note that many “rich schools’’ too have come up in commercial buildings and not being able to afford land for a playground is an apology for a reason to stop having play areas in schools. But officials say that parents prioritise the quality of education in the classroom over other details of the school such as its play area.

But the irony of it all seems lost on the powers that be. There is not only a covert admission in this playground exemption that government education quality is not up to the mark and thus the need to give private schools a push, but also an overt confession that the government couldn’t really care less for improving its schools. Whatever happened to the flush-with-funds schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan to improve schools across the length and breadth of the country is anybody’s guess.

THS IS ALSO WHY WE GO TO SCHOOL!: School students taking a break from books to play outdoor games with friends may soon be a thing of the past in this spaceless city. The new GO says schools can tie up with the nearest municipal playground and take the students there, but really, WHERE ARE THESE MUNICIPAL PLAYGROUNDS?

source : Times of India, 17 July 2008