Baddowal govt school building to be declared unsafe, finally

Shivani Bhakoo

Ludhiana, July 24

The Public Works Department (PWD) appears to have finally agreed on declaring a portion of Baddowal Government Senior Secondary School (GSSS) building as ‘unsafe’. And once it is officially declared unsafe, it will be demolished. Following which, construction work can begin. It took the department 11 months just to arrive at the decision. On August 23, 2023, a female teacher of this school had died while three others sustained injuries as a part of the building caved in.

According to Harjinder Singh, DEO (Secondary), at a recent committee meeting, the PWD engineers agreed to declare a portion of the building unsafe after thorough inspection. Though the GNE College had declared the building unfit a long time ago, the PWD officials did not agree.

“Once it is declared unfit, we will float a tender to have the structure demolished. It took nearly a year to arrive at the decision. Students and teachers had to deal with a lot of difficulties in the meantime,” the DEO added.

It should be noted that over these 11 months, students had to attend classes at a makeshift school and a nearby gurdwara. The Education Department allegedly did not take the matter seriously, and no construction took place during these months for there was no agreement on the safety classification of the structure.

The government has not provided any compensation to the teacher’s family, who died in the tragic incident on August 23.