By TCN News,
New Delhi: On May 6, a team of senior AMU alumni based in Delhi led by Parwez Mohammad with Mohammad Aslam and Nehal Ahmed Siddique met with the Commissioner of Kendriya Vidalaya Sangathan(KVS), Avinash Dikshit for two Central Schools in Okhla region of New Delhi in his office at the Qutub Institutional Area.
HRD Secretary had earlier written a letter to the Commissioner of Kendriya Vidalaya Sangathan (KVS) on 8 April, 2013 after effective representation and pressure from this AMU Alumni group to the HRD Secretary about the complete negligence for good quality schools in this Okhla region.
Okhla region, surrounding Jamia Millia Islamia, is a predominantly Muslim region in the national capital with more than a million urban poor and lower middle class Muslim population that lacks basic amenities and infrastructure.
Because of the unavailability of the quality schools, children from this area forced to travel 20 to 30 kilometers to far off places in Noida and Pitampura.
Parwez Mohammad added that there is very higher number of reported cases in the media that a large number of good schools in Delhi is unable to admit the children from this area based on the pretext of the Muslim Identity as even some well known professors’ children of Jamia Millia Islamia University have been rejected based on this.
Economically several good quality private schools are beyond the reach of the 90 percent poor and lower middle class first generation educated rural poor migrants of UP living in this Okhla cluster.
These AMU alumni argue that there are enough UP Government Irrigation Department land available in the neighborhood of Okhla that is not utilized for any Irrigation related works now and if Government Of India is sincere then the KVS can write a letter to UP Government to transfer this land for creating these vital quality modern education for the urban poor population of this area.
According to Parwez Mohammad, the Commissioner of Kendriya Vidalaya Sangathan(KVS), has agreed in principle to open two central schools in this area and that KVS will soon write letters to both the governments of Delhi and UP in this regard. The KVS commissioner Avinash Dikshit is even willing to start central schools in temporary buildings from class I to Class V once Delhi Government is ready to provide some place and all the cost of the teaching staffs will be taken care by the KVS.
They are planning to write letters to the UP Government for the transfer of at least 4 acres of land for each school.
Earlier they also wrote a letter and met the health secretary demanding a hospital in the region.
Parwez added that we, the AMU Alumni based in Delhi region will take a responsibility to further pressurize the Government of the day in UP to transfer the land to the KVS once the KVS will write a formal letter to the government of UP with full plan of utilization of lands and after prior approval for the purpose of creating two central schools.
Their argument has been that the majority of the population of this Okhla region is the poor and lower middle class rural migrants from UP and there is no reason for denying this legitimate demands by the central government in Delhi to provide these basic quality educational facilities for the poor migrants population of the UP.
Related:
AMU alumni meet Union Health Secretary for a central hospital in Okhla
