Civic body to grant aid to 33 private schools

As the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation grapples with the closure of its Marathi medium schools,it has decided to partially aid additional 33 private schools,17 of which are Marathi medium schools. Of the remaining— eight are Urdu medium schools; seven are Hindi medium while one is a Gujarati medium school.

Despite the financial crunch being faced by the civic body,it has sanctioned a grant of Rs 5.3 crore to these 35 private schools for the academic year 2010-11. The allocated funds will account for 50 per cent of the total cost of running these schools while the remaining 50 per cent of the expenses will be incurred by the respective school managements. With a budget worth over Rs 1700 crore for 2010-11,the BMC’s education department is currently aiding 457 private schools with over 2.5 lakh students.

According to Dr Ram Barot,chairman of the BMC’s education committee,the said schools had applied for grants. “However,considering the financial situation we have decided not to aid anymore private schools till we are financially sound,” said Barot. The BMC had echoed a similar resolution last year when it sanctioned funds to aid 11 private schools.

Twenty seven municipal-run Marathi schools have shut down in the last one-and-a-half years owing to the decreasing demand amongst masses for Marathi education.