Residents protest shifting of school

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 9

Local residents on Saturday staged a protest against the shifting of the government elementary school at Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar.

The protesters raised slogans against the state government, alleging that the school which was being run from a gurudwara, is being shifted to an ITI centre and that around 250 students studying here would be inconvenienced as most of them belong to poor families.

The residents said that ,1000 square yard of land is lying vacant in Udham Singh Nagar and a school should, therefore, be constructed there. They also served an ultimatum saying if a decision regarding building a school in Udham Singh Nagar is not taken by December 15, the students along with their parents would stage a protest.

They also claimed that the Suvidha Kendra functioning in the area had earlier been shut and now the school too is being shifted, which was disappointing.

The protest was headed by SAD worker Sushil Kumar and Mayor Balwant Rai Nath, along with SAD city president Rajwinder Singh Sidhu and Mohanjit Singh Puri, who assured that they stood by the residents and condemned the ‘’anti-people’’ policies of the state government.

Taking strict note of the development, Mayor Balwant Rai Nath has written letters to Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Finance Minister and Bathinda MLA Manpreet Singh Badal, Education Minister OP Soni and Deputy Commissioner Praneet over the issue.

In the letter, the Mayor stated that the government elementary school is being run at Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar in the city. Students, mostly belonging to the under-privileged and deprived sections of society, study here, due to which they cannot go to a far off place to attend school.

The Mayor also demanded that basic amenities be provided to students in the school and pointed out that students from even the nearby slum areas come to study in the school.