Kolkata, Mar 7 (IANS): Saddled with the declining student strength since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and dilapidated condition of school buildings, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to close down as many as 18 primary schools run by it shortly.

These schools will be merged with other KMC-run primary schools in the nearest locations. The teachers and students of the closed schools will be relocated to the schools with which they will be merged.

With this, the total number of KMC-run schools will decline to 224 from the current number of 242. A formal notification on this count has been issued by the KMC authorities, in which it said the decision is subject to final clearance from KMC's Member-Mayor in Counci (Education), Sandipan Saha, and KMC Commissioner Vinod Kumar.

Recently, Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim had announced that considering the limited number of students and dilapidated condition of the school buildings, it has been decided to close down 25 schools and merge them with KMC-run schools at the nearest locations.

"The process has started with the notification after identification of 18 schools in the first phase. In the next phase, seven more primary schools will be identified and merged with schools with higher number of students and better infrastructure in the nearest locations," a KMC official said.

However, CPI-M's student wing, the Students' Federation of India (SFI), had objected to the decision of closing down these KMC-run primary schools.

"Actually, this is a ploy to close down more schools to facilitate entry of private players in the field of primary education. With regard to education, the motto of the rulers, both at the Centre and in the state, are the same, which is to facilitate private players. The move will deprive the students from financially weak background the right to basic education," said the Kolkata district secretary of SFI, Md Atif.