Two govt depts trade blame
Two government departments have been commissioned the same piece of land that houses a primary school building at Sonarai Bazar in Domar upazila. However, one was assigned to develop it, while the other is going to knock it down.
With the primary education department’s consent, the Dristinandan Government Primary School was restructured by the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) from a one-story building to a two-storey in 2015-16 at a cost of Tk 33.5 lakh.
The one-storey building was situated on two decimals of land, while the school premises spans one acre of land. There is a playground and an old tin shed structure on the rest of the land where classes are also held.
However, that two-decimal piece of land was acquired by the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) in 2011 to widen the adjacent Nilphamari-Domar regional highway.
Kamini Kanta Roy, sub divisional engineer of Nilphamari RHD, said, “We have started work on the 23-kilometer long Nilphamari-Domar road.”
“To widen the road, we launched eviction drives in the first week of November, and the Dristinandan Government Primary School building will be demolished soon as it sits on acquisitioned land.”
Abul Kalam Azad, Sonarai upazila chairman, said, “The primary education department and LGED are blaming each other, as questions now arise on how the first floor of the building was constructed, even though the land was acquisitioned.”
The school has 550 students and 14 teachers and about 50 students get GPA-5 in the Primary Education Completion Examinations on average a year, according to the school’s Had Teacher Shajneen Ara.
Two decimals of school land, where the building stands, was acquisitioned in August 2011 at a cost of Tk 9.07 lakh by RHD, she added.
The illegal construction took place when Golam Faruk, now retired, was the headmaster and Monjurul Huq was president of the school managing committee (SMC), she informed.
Golam Firoz, the current SMC president, said, “Demolition of the school building cannot be averted. It will be difficult to continue education for a scarcity of classrooms as school activities will have to continue in the old tin-shed structure.”
Both the primary education department and LGED are at fault here, he believes.
The education department thought the roads and highways department would change the road plans to save the school building, he added.
The then SMC president Monjurul Huq said, “LGED just wanted to spend the funds under the Primary Education Development Program III, which funded the renovation works.”
District Primary Education Officer Osman Gani said, “It is mandatory for LGED to verify land documents before any construction but they didn’t do and so they should be blamed.”
Masudur Rahman, senior assistant engineer of Nilphamari LGED, said, “The school authority and education department officials will select site as per valid land documents and LGED will construct building accordingly. But they hid information about land acquisition and for this, they must bear responsibility.”
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