Hyderabad: After successfully running the school for more than two decades, life has been reversed to S Mallesham.
The owner is proud of the school until Covid-19 hit last year, he had to open a small grocery store to survive.
Mallesham was one of hundreds of school owners who had been hit by a pandemic of Coronavirus.
Mallesham has rented the Sirya school building for some financial assistance.
“I can no longer run school,” he told Toi.
The school – Surya English Medium School, has around 220 students during the last academic year.
However, with the majority of them did not pay fees, he was forced to borrow money to keep and run.
“Now I have a debt running to several lakh,” he said, adding how difficult to keep the school running during the 2020-21 academic year.
“I hope that students will begin to pay fees after the physical class begins, but with Covid-19 disturbing this academic year too, all my hopes of running.
Furthermore, no one is ready to invest again,” said Mallesham, who has run school since years 2000.
TOI contacted several other budget school management, which was forced to close the store during a pandemic, because of the severe financial crisis during the last and current academic year.
In the state, around 1,500 budget schools have met with the same fate and thousands of other people are in the closing threshold because there are not many new admissions for the 2021-22 academic year.
“I can’t even pay my hire in the past or more years, because 60% to 70% of students don’t pay fees.
Hope the situation will slowly increase, I borrow money from others.
But now I can no longer run my school , “said Samboji Shekhar, Correspondent, Mother Teresa School, Karimnagar.
He said that 200 students were registered with his school during the last academic year and that most of them had searched for schools this year.
Shekhar now manages the wedding bureau because the school has a debt of Rs 30 lakh.
Likewise, Vijay Pal Reddy, one of the Green Sedge High School promoters, Huzurabad, now works under the contractor for Rs 25,000 salary per month.
Reddy said the directors did not have a choice except to close the school because they could not even pay rent or emis because parents did not pay cost contributions.
They even have to sell school buses to pay a portion of the loan-rs 5 lakh.
“One of our director’s plots, which is guaranteed by bank guarantor, auctioned by the bank and he cannot digest it and die of a heart attack.
Another director died of Covid-19 infection,” he said.
Go without alternative, they have closed school and even gets a closing letter.
“We have 500 students who are registered with us at closure.
Now I have shifted to Hyderabad with my family and work under the contractor to meet your needs,” he added.