State-of-the-art school at Perumbakkam Inaugurated
Chennai, February 27, 2010: The Rotary Club of Madras, the third oldest club in India, today officially handed over a Higher Secondary School built from scratch to the Education Department at Perumbakkam, which was affected by the floods in 2015.Built on 1.2 acres of land, it has 17 classrooms and 6 laboratories constructed over 29,800 Sq. ft and can accommodate 660 students. Tata companies and their employees, through the Tata Tamil Nadu Floods Response Programme, were the major donors
The response programme, started by Tata group’s nodal disaster response arm, Tata Community Initiatives Trust, carried out multiple relief and rehabilitation measures post the devastating floods of 2015. Anuja Foundation USA and Rotarians from the Club contributed the balance towards this Rs. 7-crore project.
Inaugurating the School, Thiru. K.A. Sengottaiyan, Hon’ble Minister for School Education, Government of Tamil Nadu said that Tamil Nadu has always enjoyed the support of the corporate world and the Rotary in creating excellent infrastructure in the form of schools, hospitals and more, and rising to help when the
situation warranted it, for the community at large. He thanked the Rotarians of the Rotary Club of Madras and the Tata group in particular for this noble gesture and assured that the school will be run in the most efficient way possible to mould children who will contribute positively to the society in the future.
Dr. Vijaya Bharathi Rangarajan, President of the Club explained that what started as a rescue mission slowly changed to providing solid infrastructure in the form of the School with the most modern facilities and laboratories, aligned to the philosophy of “building back better”, for over 500 tenements who live in the Perumbakkam area
.Mr. Dheeraj Kumar, IAS, Principal Secretary, School Education Department, Government of Tamil Nadu was the Guest of Honor. Mr. Siddharth Sharma, Group Chief Sustainability Officer, Tata Sons,expressed his sentiments, hoping that this school would contribute to the larger mission of providing quality education for generations to come. Mr C. K. Venkataraman, Managing Director, Titan Company Limited, Mr. Suresh Raman, Vice President and Regional Head – Chennai, Tata Consultancy Services, andRtn. G. Chandramohan, District Governor,Rotary Dist 3232, were also present on the occasion and were univocal in their praise for the School.Rtn. Ashok Thakkar, Chairman, Perumbakkam School Project Committee and Rtn, R. Ravi Shankar, Director, Community Service gave information on how the project was conceived after the floods and how it slowly changed to becoming a state-of-the-art School, crediting the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Education Department in particular for their support and clarity of what was required for the welfare of the Perumbakkam residents.