Incomplete School Building Leaves Children Uneducated in Bara

Bara. The construction of a building for a community school attended by extremely poor and impoverished children in Jitpursimra Sub-Metropolitan City-23 has been stalled for 6 years. The construction work was halted midway due to extremely low quality work and serious technical errors found during the school building construction, with fears of an accident at any time. A total of 1 crore 10 lakh rupees, including 60 lakh rupees from the sub-metropolitan city and 50 lakh rupees from the Madhesh Provincial Government, has been invested so far in the construction of the 5-room building of Shree Nepal Rashtriya Secondary School, Bhaluhi. The sub-metropolitan city started the building construction work from the financial year 2078/079 according to the design approved by the Federal Ministry of Education. However, the sub-metropolitan city claims that the provincial government later allocated budget on its own without coordination, distorted the building's design, and did substandard work. Due to the negligence of the sub-metropolitan city and the provincial government, children here are deprived of education as the school building remains stalled. Children from this village, connected to the Bara-Parsa industrial corridor, are forced to cross the busy 6-lane road to study in schools in the neighboring Parsa district. Some children have even lost their lives in accidents while crossing the road. Babudin Alam, a local resident of Jitpursimra-23, demands that an impartial investigation be conducted into whose negligence caused the school building, in which more than 1.25 crore rupees have been invested, to be left incomplete, and that the guilty be punished. He said, 'It is necessary to create pressure to take this problem to the higher authorities. Due to the lack of a school building, children from poor, Dalit, and extremely impoverished families here are deprived of education.' He added, 'If the building is technically unsafe and of poor quality, it should be demolished and rebuilt.' The roof, windows, and doors of the building, which has been stalled for 6 years, have collapsed, and the iron rods used in the construction have also been stolen. Local residents are using the incomplete building to tie goats and rest during the day. Another local resident, Musabir Dewan, said that the government should punish the employees and technicians who did substandard work and immediately expedite the construction of the stalled building. 'Since there is no school in the village, our children have to cross the 6-lane road to go to Parsa district,' Dewan said, 'Many students have lost their lives in accidents while crossing the road.' The construction work had started during the tenure of the then Ward Chairman Aslam Dewan (Maoist Center). However, after Mustafik Ansari was elected Ward Chairman from CPN-UML in the 2079 election, the building became abandoned due to mutual disagreements between old and new representatives and contractors, commission games, and internal conflicts, according to locals. Current Ward Chairman Mustafik Ansari, however, says that work cannot be expedited immediately as a complaint has been filed with the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority regarding the school building construction. On the other hand, local Babudin Alam has accused Ward Chairman Ansari of trying to evade his responsibility by using the excuse of the commission. According to Sanjeev Rupakheti, an engineer at the sub-metropolitan city, the sub-metropolitan city was carrying out the work through a consumer committee at a cost of 60 lakh rupees as per the design approved by the Ministry of Education. However, this problem arose because the provincial government distorted the design and carried out the work without coordination. Engineer Rupakheti added, 'Some mistakes were made by us as well; the work of constructing a 60 lakh building should not have been given to a consumer committee. Later, before we could finish the work, the province also caused many problems by allocating budget and distorting the entire design for the same building.' He further said, 'The province worked by distorting the entire old structure haphazardly without any technical analysis of where to place the classrooms, toilets, or stairs. On what basis should we proceed with the remaining work?' Local residents had also obstructed the work, citing that the work was not done according to the design and substandard materials were used during the casting of the school roof. Meanwhile, the education branch of the sub-metropolitan city has stated that a concrete decision should be taken immediately and work should be expedited as many children in Ward No. 23 are deprived of going to school. Serious Technical Error: Sub-Metropolitan City Jitpursimra Sub-Metropolitan City has admitted that there is a serious technical error in the under-construction community school building in Ward No. 23. Abhayakant Jha, head of the technical department of the sub-metropolitan city, said that the school's roof is extremely weak and dilapidated and could collapse at any time, so further investment cannot be made in that building. According to him, the provincial government carried out the work of casting the roof and constructing the walls before the work agreed upon by the municipality was completed. Jha said, 'To be honest, the school building is technically extremely substandard, and the roof has been cast in a way that is unusable.' He added, 'There is no situation to invest further or proceed with work in an unsafe building. If the school is operated only by repairing it, a major accident could happen at any time in the future.' The municipality has not yet made a concrete decision on whether to demolish the stalled and dilapidated under-construction school building and rebuild it or leave it as it is. The current municipal leadership does not seem inclined to invest further in the work that was spoiled due to the previous leadership.