Mumbai: Amid Land Misuse Claims, Education Body Mobilises Parent, Political Support

Following a complaint of misuse of leased land, Children Welfare Centre (CWC) High School in Versova on Friday convened a parent meeting to refute the allegations levelled against the school management. The complaint was filed to the BMC last week by BJP’s Versova MLA Bharati Lavekar, alleging that CWC had sub-leased part of the land obtained from the civic body to a national chain of schools and carried out unauthorised construction.

Civic officials carried out an inspection of the school and claimed to have found several violations of the lease agreement. On Friday, the BMC issued a notice to the school, asking them to stop the ‘unauthorised’ alteration work.

At the school meeting, which was attended by around 2,000 parents, the principal and CWC founder trustee Ajay Kaul criticised the manner in which the BMC carried out the inspection of the school. The event also saw Mumbai North West MP Gajanan Kirtikar, who belongs to BJP ally Shiv Sena, and MLC Kapil Patil throwing their weight behind the management. Kaul said the school got a call from the BMC a night before and inspection was carried out when the classes were on amid heavy police bandobast.

In her complaint to BMC chief IS Chahal, Lavekar alleged that CWC violated the terms of its lease by ‘sub-leasing’ land to two schools belonging to Orchids The International School. She alleged that the school is charging exorbitant fees, instead of offering free education to a certain number of students as stipulated in the lease agreement. She also accused the organisation of undertaking unauthorised constructions, building commercial ‘banquet’ halls and violating the norms pertaining to Coastal Regulation Zone.

Kaul offered a detailed rebuttal and touted various welfare activities undertaken. “[The complaint] could be a result of social work that we did after the pandemic,” he said, claiming that the two Orchids schools are managed by CWC itself. He also said that the fee structure has been periodically approved by the BMC. He claimed that the halls within the school are not used for commercial purposes and are instead constructed to carry out parent-teacher meetings and educational activities. He said an NOC from Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority was obtained.

Kirtikar, who also spoke at the occasion, criticised Lavekar as he heaped praise on Kaul. “It doesn’t suit any MLA or public representative [to make such a complaint]. Is Kaul doing anything illegal? If he hadn’t used the land reserved for school, slums would have come up here. She has maligned her and her party’s image,” he said.

Patil also expressed solidarity and asked the authorities to protect the school. “Take the bribes all you want, but let the school function. The reason they are targeting this school is because they don’t get anything from here,” he said.

Lavekar claimed that she took up the issue to ensure the security of students. “I obtained the documents related to the school under the Right to Information. They clearly indicate violation of norms. If there’s an accident, who will be responsible? As a public representative, it’s my duty to prevent irregularities,” she said.

Lavekar added that she was hurt by Kirtikar’s statement. “The MP gave a clean chit without verifying the claims. It’s not suitable to talk about a woman MLA in such a manner,” she said.