Kendrapara: Students of Totasahi Project Primary School at Chandol in Derabish block had a narrow escape when a portion of the mud wall of the school caved in Tuesday before school hours.
Most of the utensils of the school used for MDM preparation were also destroyed.
“Had the wall caved in during school hours then it would have been a major mishap, but it happened before the school opened”, said Prativa Das, the headmistress.
“When I came to know that a portion of the wall had caved in I shifted all the students to nearby coaching class. 17 students have attended school”, the headmistress said.
Acting on the information from the headmistress, the ABEO-cum-BRCC, Narahari Sutar, and the CRCC, Dulal Sahu, rushed to the spot.
The Sub collector-cum-District Project Co-ordinator (DPC) of SSA Kendrapara, Sanjay Kumar Mishra, also visited the school.
The state government has been providing funds to the district under the Sarva Sikhya Abhijan (SSA) for providing better educational infrastructure in schools.
But the objective of the government is not getting fulfilled as a visit to the school will reveal with students studying in a ramshackle thatched house.
The school was set up eight years back about 200 metres away from the Chandol police outpost. Altogether 20 students from Class 1 to Class 5 have been studying in the school. The school functions from a mud-walled thatched house in the middle of an agriculture field.
The school does not have an all-weather road. The kids generally go to school through a narrow earthen road that looks like the dikes of an agriculture field. Two teachers, including the headmaster, were appointed to teach the students.
During the rains the school remains submerged. Most of the time, they also fail to get MDM due to lack of a kitchen.
Though the school is running in a dilapidated thatched house the concerned authority has not constructed a building, said Ashok Barik, the guardian of a student.
According to Mishra, the DPC of SSA, years back a sum of Rs 10 lakh was sanctioned for the construction of the school building, but as there was no government land near the area the funds remained unutilised and later returned.
The district administration later identified a plot near the local veterinary office in the locality, but guardians and the school managing committee refused to send kids to such a long distance. As a result, the construction of the school building has not started.
Meanwhile, local Purna Chandra Sahu has agreed to donate his land for construction of the school building. But due to rain it has not been completed though the district administration has attempted demarcation of the land.
“After the rain stops we would start the demarcation process and later funds would be sanctioned under Sarva Sikhya Abhijan,” assured Mishra.
As Wednesday is a government holiday he said he would visit the school and arrange a place in the nearby village to run it, he said.
PNN