Irregularities spotted in Jhapa school building construction

Birtamod, July 24:  Irregularities have been found in the construction of building of Singha Devi Basic School in Kankai Municipality 4, Jhapa.  Under the President's Educational Reform Programme, the school received Rs. 1.8 million for the construction of a two-storey school building.  But, the school constructed another floor on its old tin-roofed building and received the budget.

Bikram Pandey, a local of the district, said that the old building, which was built without adding a floor neither has rods for reinforcement nor is earthquake-resistant. 

In stark contrast, the programme allocated the budget for the school to construct a building with strong foundation with rods, but the building was built by demolishing the tin roof.

Started in April 2022, the construction was planned to be completed by June of the same year. 

Now, the construction committee has received all allocated budget for the programme, but the Kankai Municipality has ordered the school to halt the construction. 

Roshan Subedi, Ward Chairman of Kankai 4, said that they were instructed to stop the construction immediately because the building was teetering on the edge of collapse. 

Ward chairman Subedi said that the instruction came lately and that all the funds have been disbursed according to the agreement of the municipal employees.  In this regard, Hari Prasad Mishra, the education officer of the municipality, said that the funds were withdrawn because the money would be frozen if that measure wasn’t taken.  

Mishra said that they allocated the budget after officials of the teachers’ management committee promised to construct another building using its own money.

Gayatri Bahadur Karki, chairman of the building construction committee, said that although he heads the committee, he has not much authority over the matter.  

Rajendra Dangi, the chairman of the school management committee, for his part, admitted that it was a mistake to add a floor on top of the old building. 

Dumbar Phuyal, headmaster of the school, acknowledged a mistake in the construction of the building and said the rest of the work will be done according to the advice of the engineer. 

Locals have also complained at Hello Sarkar about the issue. 

The school is also mired in another trouble: It has been teaching up to class nine from private resources, though it has a permission to run classes only up to grade five.

Adding to the problem, the school's bank account has been frozen.

Kankai Municipality's education section chief Pitambar Gautam said that the building was not constructed as per the prepared design.

"After we saw the school building, we froze the school's bank account. Out of Rs. 1.8 million, they had withdrawn Rs. 200,000 already," said Gautam.

Gautam informed that the budget was allocated on the recommendation of Education and Human Resource Management Centre. "We will investigate the issue further," he added.

The municipality has also directed the officials to demolish the haphazardly constructed building and construct a new one in its place as per the design and agreement.