Money is allegedly being made under the guise of charity for a minority community. MLA funds have been utilised to build a private school on a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plot near Badi Masjid on SV Road, (West), sources said.
Right to information queries have led to the revelation that the Bazar Road UP Urdu Municipal School standing on the plot has a private English medium school running on its ground floor. Named the AR Siddique School, the private school allegedly thrives on funds provided by local MLA Baba Siddique.
“Under the guise of providing education to the minority, trustees of the school have commercialised it. Poor parents are being made to pay hefty sums as school fees,” Rehbar Khar, local corporator, said.
A parent of a student of the school said on condition of anonymity that he had been charged an admission fee of Rs1,400, a half-yearly fee of Rs3,500 and Rs260 for uniform.
“How can a trust taking over a BMC school on an adoption basis use it for commercial gains? I will move a notice of motion in the house for cancellation of allotment to this trust,” BJP corporator Ashish Shelar said.
The RTI application has also revealed that the BMC recently received a proposal from Baba Siddique to construct an additional floor for this school, using MLA funds.
Sources said that the private school was named after the Baba Siddique’s late father, AR Siddique. But when DNA contacted the MLA, he initially said that he knew about no such school.
After he was told that RTI replies had revealed him asking the BMC to use MLA funds for the expansion of the school he “knew nothing about”, Siddique said, “I always use of my funds for philanthropic activities.”
The Awami Welfare Association (AWA) of Maharashtra, which adopted the Bazar Road UP Urdu Municipal School in 1991, also runs the private school. Syed Mannan, general secretary of the AWA, said, “The first floor of the building is occupied by a private school, for which we are charging a fee of just Rs150 per month. We adopted the municipal school from the BMC 20 years ago. It has not been leased to us.”
Education committee chairman Ram Barot, asked about this, said, “I know about many cases in which private schools are being run on BMC land. I do not know whether it is okay by the rulebook. I need to examine the deeds of the adoption policy in details before commenting on the issue.”
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