Playgrounds at seven civic school to get makeover

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will develop playgrounds in seven municipal schools to help students develop their sporting skills. It will spend ₹1.58 crore on the project.

The grounds will be developed to play games like kho-kho, football, kabaddi, basketball and handball. The BMC will level the ground, install drainage facilities, put up protective drainage covers, layer mud grounds with gravel, fit perforated water sprinklers, spread EPDM rubber mats and set up sports equipment.

Initially, the BMC has proposed developing the playgrounds attached to Bajaj Road Municipal School, Kandivali (West); Kurar Hindi Municipal School, Malad; and Shastri Nagar Municipal School in Bandra (East). The work will be completed in eight months, excluding the monsoon.

Ravi Raja, opposition leader of the BMC, said, “Unlike private schools, almost all our municipal schools have playgrounds, which could be developed to benefit of the students. So, we have recommended that the BMC develop all playgrounds for students and not just a few.”

These developments come at a time when the government has closed over thousand schools in rural parts of the State and is being accused of trying to favour private schools. Incidentally, private schools that do not have playgrounds can get clearances to set up a school in Mumbai by showing that there is a playground within a 2.5-km radius of the school.