The organization runs its national head office from a Byculla municipal school, which BMC wants back as part of its drive to reclaim its classrooms.Alcoholics Anonymous, the international organization devoted to help problem drinkers kick the bottle, has been asked by BMC to vacate the municipal school premises in Byculla, which has been the organisation’s India head office for the last 21 years.The eviction notice, issued a few days ago, is part of the BMC drive to reclaim its classrooms from NGOs and similar organisations who are not involved in ‘education-related’ activities.

In June, a similar notice had been issued to the Helen Keller Institute for Deaf & Deaf blind, which occupies 11 classrooms in another municipal school in Byculla, following which the institute officials said they will take up the matter with the chief minister if forced to move out (Helen Keller Inst, BMC at loggerheads over premises, Mumbai Mirror, September 17). The institute has been running its school in its current location for the last 36 years.

As per the BMC statistics, 2,000 of its classrooms across the city have been rented out to NGOs and charitable trusts on a nominal monthly rent, but several of these have been running non-educational programmes.

While the Helen Keller institute said the disability of their students was so complex that regular classroom dynamics don’t work, the Alcoholics Anonymous, which operates from a municipal English medium school on Meghraj Sethi Marg, said its work was nothing less than imparting education.

Arun S from Alcoholics Anonymous’ Mumbai unit said, “We have already made a representation to BMC, requesting them to consider ours as a special case. We are not using the premises for commercial gains; rather, we are helping people from across strata.”

The institute, spread over three classrooms, operates its all-India helpline, and also publishes its pamphlets in more than 15 Indian languages.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Mohan Adtani, however, promised the Alcoholics Anonymous a “positive response”. He said, “They have sent us a representation and their activities are not profit-driven. I will give them a positive response,” he said.

The BMC top brass, however, feared the concessions granted to one organization will be used against the civic body by others. Manoj Kotak, chairman, Education Committee (BMC), said the civic body will have to stick to its premises-only-for-education policy. “The guidelines are clear: all non-education institutes will have to move out of municipal schools. Organisations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, who are no doubt doing a great service to the society, should be provided alternative accommodation by the government,” he said.

Sources in the civic body said the BMC classrooms will no longer be given on rent. “Municipal schools will be run by private organisations or trusts in partnership with BMC, which will retain control of its schools,” the source said.