9 months after primary school building collapse in Sidhupur village, govt yet to release grants for carrying out repairs

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Jalandhar, June 20

Schools will open on July 1. Students of Government Primary School, Sidhupur village, would not be attending classes in their own school. Rather, they would be studying in a nearby panchayat ghar. It was in September last year when the roof of school verandah collapsed and students were then shifted to a nearby panchayat ghar. Nine months have passed, but nothing has been done to repair the school building.

As per information, the school building developed some cracks after floods hit the Lohian block. Later, the roof of verandah collapsed.

Amandeep Kaur, school in-charge, said no grant was received as the election code was in force. She said, “We hope that grants will be released soon for the repair of the school building and students will be shifted to the institution premises.”

When the incident had happened, the school authorities had immediately contacted officials concerned. The Block Primary Education Officer (BPEO), along with officials of the Education Department had visited the school, but still everything remained the same.

“The BPEO has asked us to take classes in a nearby panchayat ghar. We have also checked the safety of the panchayat ghar. Everything is fine there. We don’t want to compromise students’ safety,” a teacher had then said.

The kitchen and rooms of the school are also in a poor condition. There is only one teacher and 25 students in the Sidhupur village school.

A similar incident had happened in Baddowal village too where a teacher had died while two others suffered injuries after the roof of Government Senior Secondary School collapsed. The incident had sent shock waves among the teaching community.

Scared after the incident, teachers said there were several school buildings that had developed cracks after floods hit the Lohian block.