The Irram Manzil Government High School, Punjagutta, on its last legs, as expansion works of Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences are in full swing with all routes to it closed, in Hyderabad on June 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL
Telangana Education department’s school enrolment drive Prof. Jayashankar Badi Bata programme is a futile scheme for the Irram Manzil Government High School, Punjagutta.
Established in the 1960s, particularly to admit children of then Secretariat employees when Hyderabad replaced Kurnool as the State capital, the school boasts some prominent alumni: Legislators, bureaucrats, bankers, lawyers and business people.
The school, if seen on a map, had five routes till a year ago. Children would walk the Balapur Basthi road, Irram Manzil colony road, Multiplex Road, through Pukat Nagar and the road opposite supermarket to reach school. Both primary and high school on the same campus had a combined strength of about 600 pupils.
But almost for a year now, the school is left with just one route — circuitously, the entry and exit of the Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), along the outpatient block, main block, pharmacy, millennium block and the parking area, just like it is for all patients and visitors.
“It’s like telling students to take this route or just don’t come to school. Even getting to the hospital’s main entry and exit is big risk when crossing the roads, and then there is exposure to contagious diseases or hospital-like atmosphere to reach school every day,” says V. Sudhakar of the School alumni association, an active body to protect the school.
Association members firmly say: “We are not against NIMS expansion, but we are against the consistent attempts to erase this school. As agreed earlier, the authorities must build an alternative school accommodation and thereafter touch this.”
Passionate about the school, like the alumni association, are also parents who recently knocked on the doors of the Telangana High Court for immediate intervention.
According to officials who are busy preparing the school for the reopening on June 12, the enrolment this year is 140 for primary school students and about 220 for high school students. There are 10 teachers.
“The other day the contractor started excavating and cut down the old trees on the premises. But soon the alumni members and the locals halted it. Now there is no demolition till a new school is shown,” said the school official requesting anonymity.
While some parents cite “expansion works and long distance to the school” as reasons not to choose Irram Manzil Government High School, for others — the enrolled students, their parents and teachers — continue with the old proverb: ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’.
