School rebuilt with IPS officer’s vision a boon for poor children

VADODARA: Hundreds of children from poor families studying at Kavi Dayaram Primary School at Vishwamitri have now get infrastructure equivalent to any private school.
A senior IPS officer went out of his way to ensure that the kids enrolled in the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) run school have a proper roof over their head. In 2010, when he was invited to take part in the ‘Kanya Kelavani and shala praveshotsav’ drive of Gujarat government, G S Malik, the then joint police commissioner of Vadodara city, was moved by the plight of students studying at the primary school.The school has improved even more in the last four years.
Nearly 326 students from class one to seven were made to study in a single hall in two shifts. After Malik’s representation to the state government, the school now runs from a three storied building with multiple classrooms for the kids.
“When I had visited the school, it was running from over a 50-year-old dilapidated building running from a rented accommodation. There was just one oval-shaped 30x25 foot hall, covering 650 square foot area, in which kids enrolled in class 4, class 5, class 6 and class 7 used to sit in four different corners of the same hall. Forget, classrooms, even washrooms were not in proper condition,” recollects Malik, presently Surat range inspector general (IGP), who shot off a letter seeking intervention from the then principal secretary Hasmukh Adhia.
Late Abdul Kadiwala, former principal of the school, had made several representations to all concerned but to no avail. “He was a man with great integrity and was concerned about the well-being of the kids, most of whom came from nearby slums,” said Malik, adding that after he took up the matter with Adhia, collector and DEO and then secretary R P Gupta intervened.
“It gives great satisfaction that the children now have a new building with proper infrastructure in place,” added Malik.
Kadiwala’s widow Saiyada continues teaching to students of class one at the school.
“As teachers, we had to take turns to teach in the single hall that we had as classroom. There was constant chaos. If one teacher was taking a lesson, others would be busy handling the other lot of students. Also, there was suffocation inside the hall while during monsoon, rain water would drip down from the leaked slabs,” recollect Saiyada.
“In contrast, there is so much space available now for all children and teachers,” she said.
“In the new building which came up in 2014, we have 13 classrooms, separate washrooms for boys and girls. We also have a laboratory room and a RO system,” said principal Sandip Patel. Apart from Malik and Kadiwala, chairman and education officer of VMC’s Nagar Prathmik Shikshan Samiti and social worker Khoda Bharwad made the construction of the new building possible.
Trust donated land for construction of school
Vadodara: The new building has come up on 1,600 sq feet land donated by Bharatiya Seva Samaj Trust whose founder Dadubhai Patel had rented out the old building to VMC on a token rent of Rs 105 per month.
“We have donated the land on Rs one per month token for construction of the new building,” said Viren Patel, managing trustee of the trust.
As per the trust’s wish, the building has a plaque highlighting Dadubhai Sambhubhai Patel and his wife Vimlaben Patel as donors.