A municipal school in Karur gets a facelift
RC Karur Texcity, RID 3000, has constructed a new block at the Municipal Higher Secondary School in Karur with a CSR and global grant support. It was inaugurated recently by State Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji.
The school was started in 1880 as a middle school and in 1978 higher secondary classes were introduced. “It flourished as one of the prominent schools in the town in the 1980s, when it had a strength of 4,000 students. Since 2000 the student strength steadily dwindled due to its aging infrastructure,” says L John, a past president of the club and a former headmaster of the school. PRID C Basker and former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University V C Kulandaiswamy are among the many distinguished alumni of this school, he adds.
In 2019 when John requested the then club president A J Suriyanarayana to help upgrade the school, the latter, in concurrence with the members, agreed to undertake the project to commemorate the club’s silver jubilee, and a committee was formed with PDG P Gopalakrishnan, past presidents L John, V Ramesh, L Subbiah, N Anandan and S Elamathi as members.
The foundation stone for the new block was laid in June 2020 in the presence of PRID Basker. Karur Vysya Bank donated ₹2.06 crore for construction of the classroom block and gave ₹24 lakh to TRF. RC Freshwater Bay, RID 9455, Australia, contributed ₹71.61 lakh for setting up smart class facilities, renovation of existing building and landscaping, and providing classroom furniture, CCTV cameras and a genset, taking the total cost of the project to ₹2.77 crore.
The new KVB Rotary Block, constructed after demolishing a dilapidated wing, consists of two floors built on a total 1,490 sqm area. It includes 16 classrooms, two laboratories, a staff room, separate toilet blocks for students, staff, and the differently-abled, a 1,000-litre capacity water tank and a water pump. The architectural façade of the original building which was designed in 1909 was preserved.
“Now the school is at par with any other private school and can cater to the educational needs of children from different economic strata,” smiles club president P Prabhakaran.
