Chandigarh, April 22
In violation of a ban imposed by the Chandigarh Administration, schools are mushrooming in residential areas all over the city.
Such schools are causing inconvenience to the residents. Motorcycles and cars are not only a traffic hazard, but also a source of noise pollution. Traffic comes to a near standstill during the school hours as bottlenecks are created due to haphazardly parked vehicles.
According to sources in the Administration, under the law, residential premises, when misused for commercial purposes, can be resumed by the Estate Office after following due procedure. Otherwise also, the Education Department cannot entertain the request for provisional recognition.
In a circular addressed to the Chief Architect and Secretary in the Department of Urban Affairs, along with the Estate Officer and Director Public Instruction (Schools), the UT Finance Secretary had also directed that private schools should not be allowed to operate from residential premises.
Sources add that approximately 300 schools are currently operating from residential premises all over the city. They reveal that at the moment cases of 14 schools running in residential areas are pending in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
They assert that majority of such schools are affiliated to CBSE. As per the CBSE rules, an educational institution must possess about two acres, with adequate playground, to get affiliation with CBSE.
Due to lack of coordination between the Estate Office and the Education Department, provisional recognition was given to certain private educational institutions running schools in houses on the basis of norms set for the same.
It was in the mid-1990s that the Estate Office initiated proceedings to resume residential buildings being used for running schools. The UT Administration, claim sources, has stopped giving recognition to private schools running in houses since April 1997.
Recently another school has been opened in Sector 32 in a residence. The school has a strength of about 200 students, says president of the Social Welfare Society, Sector 32, Mr Mehar Singh . It is necessary to point out that many schools are coming up in the residential areas. These schools cause a lot of problems to the residents. The traffic gets blocked on the roads and it hampers the peaceful life, he adds.
