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What is the conflict around Bandhyali School?
Currently, the major issue around Bandhyali School is the ownership of the land on which it stands. This is a picture of the board in front of Bandhyali School. It states that the land belongs to the government. It also states that it is the responsibility of the government to run good schools for deprived sections of society. It ends with a hope that we will be able to run this school without obstacles. The Bandhyali School has been running on this land since 1993 - land that was decided upon by the community of the villages of Kho Nagoriyan and Bhavgarh Bandhya. The building itself was constructed with the help of the community and funds from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The school comprises 14 classrooms, 2 toilets and 1 hand pump. It is currently supported by the Social Initiatives Group of the ICICI bank. We have applied for allotment of this land at five different occasions. The first time on February 17, 1993, the second time on October 21, 1995; the third time on May 2, 2000; the fourth time on April 8, 2003 and the fifth time on June 19, 2003. We received a response from the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) only to our request of April 8, 2003, asking for some documents and a registration amount, which we submitted.
It now appears that JDA has reserved this land for allotment to a “Mahima Shiksha Samiti” for a private university, ignoring all our requests, applications and the absolute need of the existence of Bandhyali School in the area. Given all this, we had to move the High Court. Fortunately, the High Court of Rajasthan directed the JDA to first consider our application and hear us. Since then the JDA has called us in one of their meetings to present our case where we were heard in a very cursory manner. We are now in a crisis situation. On December 2, 2005, we were asked by the JDA to move the school in the next 3 days. The school continues to function under a Stay Order from the Rajasthan High Court. |
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