The Standing Committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday refused to sanction ₹3.24 crore for setting up 296 new playschools in civic schools in the city.
The Standing Committee said that funds would be released only after the civic administration submitted a report on whether the schools had adequate infrastructure facilities to accommodate the playschools.
For now, the funds will be used to pay salaries for the past 10 months to teachers and assistant teachers of nursery schools run by private organisations as part of the their CSR programme.
Shubada Gudekar, chairperson of the education committee, said civic schools in the city continued to lack basic facilities like benches, which forced students to sit down and study.
Ms. Gudekar said, “How can we let three-year-olds sit down and not on benches? We should first ensure and check if we have the necessary infrastructure in place to set up playschools. We are already short of 1.5 lakh benches in our civic schools.”
Private firms back out
There are 504 playschools in schools run by the BMC. However, private organisations recently backed out of managing 100 of these. The BMC is now on the lookout for 18 new private organisations who can run them.
Shiv Sena Corporator Mangesh Satamkar alleged that most playschools existed only on paper.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manoj Kotak questioned how teachers and assistant teachers could be expected to work at low salaries of ₹5,000 and ₹3,000 respectively. Mr. Kotak said demanded to know why private organisations refused to partner the BMC in running 100 playschools. Most civic schools in the city are facing low enrolment rates and offer education only from Classes I to VII.
The BMC said that it wanted to open new playschools as it would help increase the enrolment rates in civic schools. In 2015–16, of the 13,277 students in 504 playschools, 7,109 took admissions in civic schools.
