BMC education project for child labour misses bus

MUMBAI, OCT 6: Two years ago, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) came up with a unique proposal to impart ``informal education''...

MUMBAI, OCT 6: Two years ago, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) came up with a unique proposal to impart “informal education” to child workers whose parents could not afford to send them to school. It was decided to take mobile school buses to the sites where the children were employed for a daily two-hour study programme.

However, the plan to impart education to the hundreds of children slaving away at Mazagaon’s prawn shelling units, hawking flowers near traffic signals and working in restaurants and construction sites soon got lost amid files.

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The indifference of the civic authorities — the Civic Education Department — and the elected representatives from the Education Committee is being blamed for the burial of the novel scheme.

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The proposal, when mooted by then Education Committee chairperson Sadhna Mane during the Mayor-in-Council’s tenure in the BMC, initially had a smooth sailing.

The plan was to convert three BEST buses into schoolrooms, complete with blackboards and benches. One bus was to be pressed into service in the city, another in the eastern suburbs and yet another in the western suburbs.

“We had thought of hiring private buses, but the cost factor didn’t support garages, drivers and regular maintenance,” Mane says. So it was decided to rope in BEST Undertaking — a sister concern of the BMC. Accordingly, a request was made to then BEST committee chairperson Arvind Nerkar.

“I had given green signal to the proposal,” Nerkar says, adding that the chairpersons who followed probably did not care to look into the matter.

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“It was decided that the BEST administration would give us three buses from scrap for Rs 1 lakh, which is a very small sum compared to the rates at which scrap buses are sold,” Mane says. “It was decided that BEST would provide drivers, maintenance and parking facilities in their garages across the city,” she adds.

Areas in the city and the suburbs where informal education was to be imparted were identified. “Two hours of education meant introducing the child to the world of education. The child would be taught to read and write. If he or she chose to pursue studies, then the municipal schools could do the needful,” Mane says. Surplus teachers in municipal schools or Community Development officers were to be employed. Some NGOs who were interested in the project had pledged their support.

However, the proposal did not take off.

When contacted, Education Officer Bhau Gawande says the proposal has been pending as the BEST Committee has not yet passed it. However, BEST General Manager Rahul Asthana says he doesn’t know of any proposal of the kind and would need to check the files if any such recommendation was ever made.

BEST Committee chairperson Rajesh Sharma has also expressed his ignorance on the matter.