‘Can’t study when it rains’: Waiting for a proper school, kids in this Yavatmal village share study space with garlic, cricket bat

5 min readJul 30, 2026 01:08 PM IST In 2026, when schools are being made tech-enabled, this Yavatmal school continues to seek basic infrastructure to continue education (Express photo) “When it rains, the sound on the plastic roof is so loud that we can hardly study. Sometimes, we cannot study at all.” These words came from Ruchika Diwalkar, a nine-year-old Class 3 student in the Marki-Khurd village of Zari Jamni taluka, Yavatmal district, Maharashtra. Like her classmates, Ruchika knows the struggles of being a student in this Yavatmal village during monsoon season.Ruchika does not have a normal classroom with a blackboard and some chalk. Instead, she studies in a temporary shelter at Zilla Parishad’s primary school, with a green shade net and plastic sheets stretching over bamboo poles, t