The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday organised a two-hour-long “silent protest” alleging that “the Chief Minister Narendra Modi is doing nothing to provide infrastructure and civic amenities in state-run educational institutions. The protest was organised outside the Chandola Primary School Number 1 and 2 (Gujarati medium) and Chandola Primary School Number 1 and 2 (Urdu medium). Both the schools share a common building, with half of the school building with Gujarati medium school and remaining half with the Urdu medium. But the school, with a student strength of 3,000 in two shifts and almost of one-third of it being girls, lacks basis civic facilities like toilet and urinals. Though there are separate toilets built for girls and boys, but they were never used ever since the new building for the school, made of pre-fabricated sheets, came into existence in June 2010. Speaking to reporters, several students and teachers of the school said that toilets could not be used because these were not connected with the sewerage lines and there was also no water supply to the toilet. “The toilets have remained unused,” said a teacher on condition of anonymity. “We made several representation with the Ahmedabad Municipal corporation (AMC) in this regard, but all in vain,” said another teacher. He said that it was really unbearable to sit in the classrooms of pre-fabricated sheets during summer season when the temperature in Ahmedabad touched 45 degree Celsius. The entire building was built at a cost of Rs 1.10 crore in June 2010 under the “Swarna Jayanti Mukhya Mantri Vikas Yojana”, a board displayed on one of the walls at the school entrance says. AAP state convener Sukhdev Patel said, “This is Modi Model of Development,” adding that while the state government did not have money to build a proper school building, Modi had been squandering public fund on holding festivals, meets and global summits simply to promote his image.
