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Govt school building found vandalised in Chandigarh
UT engineering department, education department as well as the police claimed to be completely unaware of the incident
Less than a year after its completion, the unoccupied building of the Government Model High School, Sector 12, located on PGIMER campus, was found massively vandalised on Thursday.
Appeared to have been carried out over days, the vandalism has left the school’s floor littered with debris of demolished slabs and walls, with the floor cabinets ripped out from under the slabs; taps, fans, tubelights and electricity switches missing; and waterpipes and electricity wires dismantled. Furniture, including benches, tables and chairs, were also damaged or stolen.
Yet, the UT engineering department, education department as well as the police claimed to be completely unaware of the incident. The school had no security guard.
On his part, the director school education (DSE) Rubinderjit Singh Brar said, “The building is the property of the UT chief engineer. It was not handed over to us.”
UT chief engineer Mukesh Anand said they had not taken over the building from the contractor. Therefore, it was the contractor’s liability to carry out any repairs needed, he added.
UT adviser Manoj Parida said, “I was not aware of the matter. I will get it inquired.”
Education secretary Arun Kumar Gupta did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.
The local police claimed to not have received any complaint of vandalism.
CLASSES WERE TO BEGIN
The school was constructed to accommodate around 1,000 students from the old school building on PGIMER premises. The students were supposed to be shifted to the newly constructed building this year.
Though construction of the school was completed in April 2019, its inauguration was held back several times.
Brar said, “The school’s construction took around four years. The building was supposed to be handed over to the education department, but it was delayed due to some infrastructural issues. We were expecting the school to be handed over to us by March for the next session.”
The construction of this school building, along with that of GMHS, Maloya, was reported complete in the education department’s report to the Union ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) in May 2019.
The report further mentioned that the schools were meant to be made functional with effect from April 1, 2019. However, the implementation of Code of Conduct ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections delayed the project.
