26 November,2010 07:06 AM IST | | Mohit Sharma
From underwear to kitchen utensils, you'll find everything you need at the Prathmik Vidyalaya, Sadiq Nagar in Delhi's Defence Colony every Wednesday evening. Authorities feign ignorance
While the sun is up this institution is no different from any other MCD school in the Capital. But once evening sets in, there is a chimerical change in the ambience. The droning of students learning their ABCs is replaced by the high-pitched assertions of hawkers. And people arrive in numbers, not to quench their thirst of knowledge, but looking for towels and cookie jars.
Retail therapy: Weekly Wednesday Market at the MCD school in Delhi's
Defence Colony.
This is the Prathmik Vidyalaya, Sadiq Nagar in south Delhi's posh Defence Colony. Apart from imparting education to neighbourhood kids during the day, the school also hosts a weekly market every Wednesday evening, with at least 25 ad hoc shops selling items of everyday need. Underwear, kitchen utensils, fake jewellery - you'll find all of these and more at more than reasonable rates. Naturally, the market is thronged by hundreds of locals on the anointed day.
Good buy
"We shop here every Wednesday as the things are cheap and the place is close to our houses. Besides, it is open till about midnight, so people can come here even after office hours," a local resident Nidhi Singhal said.
Shopkeepers are proud to be a part of the market. Naresh Kumar who sets up a cloth shop here said: "We set up this market at different locations in Delhi on different days, but this one is quite lucrative as it is in south Delhi and that too in Defence Colony where people don't argue much and we make about a thousand bucks."
Cash and carry
Sources who tipped off MiD DAY about the market said: "It is a primary MCD school in which students till class V study in two shifts. Though as per norms no one can enter the premises when school is out, every Wednesday a full-fledged market is organised here."
"Neither the MCD nor the police say anything to them. All the gates of the school remain open the entire evening. It can't be that it has not come to any of the authorities notice. Everyone is involved and everyone makes money," they alleged.
When contacted, Mahender Nagpal, chairman of the education committee said: "It is a strange thing that you are telling us. I don't know anything about this as I have not seen it. But if something like this is happening, then rest assured that action will be taken."
Established norm
Shopkeepers who have been assembling their kiosks here for the past several months say that the market has been functioning here (inside the school) for quite a few years now, and is one of the renowned markets of the area.
Sajjan, a seller of plastic items, said: "I have been coming here for the past one-and-a-half years and as far as I know the market has existed for at least three years now, may be more."
| Who cares ? |
| As per the government guidelines, except school canteens, no other commercial activity is allowed inside the school premises. Even during the recess period, shopkeepers are not allowed to enter schools. This is a violation of both the Delhi Education Act and of the DDA land allotment agreement for schools on DDA land. Rule 50 (IX) of the Delhi School Education Act, 1973, non-school related and commercial activities cannot be carried out in recognised schools of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. |
