Keelappoongudi’s girls pedal 10 km to attend school

SIVAGANGA: “We want Chief Minister Joseph Vijay Sir to arrange a bus service for our village,” said Udhaya Shri, a Class 10 student, as she gave her bicycle a once-over before beginning the ride on a battered stretch along a stream to reach her school about five kilometres away in Keelappoongudi.

Udhaya Shri, who lives in the Lakshmipuram hamlet of Namanur village panchayat in Sivaganga, is among the nearly 60 students, most of them girls, who pedal about 10 km every day to school and back, because the village doesn’t have a bus service.

Villagers said the lack of transportation has already forced around 90 of the 150 students in the village to shift to private schools that provide bus services.

Every day, morning and evening, a stream of girls could be seen pedalling one behind the other, like ants moving in a line, along the route to school. At some sandy stretches along the stream, it gets hard to pedal and they are forced to get down the bicycles and push them along.

“There is hardly any presence of people on this route. Our parents always caution us about safety, and we are filled with fear on our ride home in the evening,” a group of students said.

The students leave their homes around 7.30 am and reach the Government Model Higher Secondary School at Keelappoongudi around 8.15 am. In the evening, they leave school at 5 and reach home by around 6.30 pm.

“It feels like we are holding a fire in our stomach until our children reach home safely in the evening,” said Ananda Bairavi, 42, the mother of a Class 10 student from the village.

Mothers of many girl students echoed concerns about their children’s safety.

“These days it is common to see people in an inebriated condition. How can we not worry about our children's safety?” they asked.

Giritharan, a Class 10 student, said the journey becomes particularly difficult during the rainy season.

“It gets very difficult for us to reach home in the rains. We come home drenched and our books are ruined,” he said.

Though there is a direct bus service for the village in the morning and evening, the service originates from Melur, a taluk in Madurai district, and does not pass via Keelappoongudi, where the school is located.

The morning bus arrives after 9 am, while the evening service comes only after 6.30 pm.

“If we want to catch a bus, we either need to walk a kilometre to a bus stop or two kilometres to Namanur. But even then, there are no frequent services,” villagers said.

Though the village is located around 12 km from Sivaganga, the district headquarters, there is no direct government bus service connecting the village with Sivaganga.

“We have made repeated representations to authorities to run bus services during school hours, but to no avail. It will reduce the financial burden on families,” villagers said.

Lakshmipuram, where around 250 families live, is predominantly dependent on agriculture. Unable to withstand the daily ordeal and worried about their children’s safety, many families have shifted their children to private schools that provide transportation to students.

The Sivaganga Collector could not be reached for his response despite repeated attempts.