Parents of students of a private Village Community School petitioned District Collector Archana Patnaik on Monday requesting to allow the construction process of the school building near Chettipalayam, which had been halted due to a dispute.

More than 60 parents, along with activists, gathered at the District Collectorate to petition the Collector in this regard.

G. Senthilkumar, one of the parents, said that Global Pathways Schools, a Canadian chain opened up a village community school in their area in 2009 to benefit people from financially lower backgrounds. “The school authorities voluntarily visited each and every house in the area and collected students to study in the school for a very low cost,” he added.

He said that the school collected only as much as Rs. 100 from students but provided world class education, medical checkups along with extra-curricular activities including karate and swimming classes for free, adding that the same education would cost more than Rs. 80,000 in other schools.

“As many as 250 students between classes LKG to standard VIII studied in the school, out of which more than 200 were from poor economic backgrounds. The school was receiving funds from good hearted people and was able to pay the teachers Rs. 15,000 as a basic pay,” he informed.

He opined that the school authorities rented private buildings to start with and eventually started constructing an own building near Chettipalayam. However, due to some trouble with the land transfer, the work had come to a halt forcing the school to continue in rented buildings.

“When we tried approaching the local authorities with the issue, they told us that the land had many complications and that is why we approached the Collector,” he said.

Senthilkumar told The Covai Post that according to the District Administration officials, the Town Planning Department was having some issues with the land conversion initially. “The officials have assured us that the issues would be cleared immediately,” said Senthilkumar.