Surla is a small village in Sattari taluka. The small hamlet lies on State’s boundary touching Karnataka and Maharashtra. Few days back some students were seen on the streets. Their demand was completion of their school building. Although they found many sympathizers in the village, the police and the concerned authorities showed no sympathy to their demands.
The students have also been boycotting the classes for the past one week hoping to get attention from the concerned authorities but all their pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Opposition leader MLA Pratapsingh Rane made some developments in the village, bringing in the basic necessities for the people in this hamlet. When Rane was Goa’s chief minister, the then Congress government then set up this government high school, bringing relief to the boys and girls who had to travel Keri, a distance of over 25 kms for their education.
This school saved students the trouble of travelling the long distance. The facilities of the school were not only being used by students from Surla, but boys and girls from Karnataka and Maharashtra found the school convenient to use.
The parents began sending their children to this school which resulted into the students swelling in numbers. The school authorities tried to accommodate the students but found the premises was not enough for the growing number of students.
As the space was not sufficient to accommodate students up to Std X, work on a new building was started under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in 2008. The work of monitoring and completing the building was given to the Public Works Department (PWD), Valpoi.
Due to lack of space, some of the classes were even shifted to a building which was rented out by a villager. However, from this academic year the owner decided not to lease out his property and the school authorities found themselves struggling again to accommodate the students.
The school headmaster, along with the parents, knocked on the doors of the authorities to get their new building completed so that they could use the new premises before the start of the academic year. All their efforts went in vain with the contractor failing to complete the building.
Some of the locals say that the Valpoi PWD has altered the original architectural design due to which many problems have cropped up in completing the building. The locals feel that the height of the roof is not according to the guidelines and the rain water falling on the roof causes lot of disturbance. They told the media that the rain water also seeps through the walls and the roof.
Concerned villagers have been demanding the PWD authorities to rectify the problem for the past one year, but despite complaints the police have not moved an inch to solve this problem, the villagers claimed.
Receiving no response, the students and their parents along with the villagers, are feeling left out and sources say they may get aggressive in their demands. They claim that the PWD is responsible for this delay and allege the contractor is given a free hand, which lives the building incomplete.
Getting good education, the villagers say, is a birthright of the students. The school is lacking in so many facilities and till date it doesn’t have a laboratory.
The Keri school does not have a full time clerk to look after the telephone connectivity, say the villagers.
At present there are 89 students studying in the school. Last year the school had 82 per cent success in the SSC exams.
The villagers say that the government is earning big amount in revenue when granting liquor licences. Since the village enjoys a cool environment, tourists from Karnataka and Maharashtra often visit the place and to enjoy their Sundays and holidays. The locals feel the government should make use of some part of the revenue to solve the problems on this village.
