No funds released to contractor, construction of Ludhiana govt school building comes to standstill

The foundation stone of the Rs 2-crore project was laid at the site last year in June.

The construction work of the new building for the Government School at Millerganj came to a standstill on Friday after the state education department failed to release funds to the contractor.

The site for the new building of Government School, Millerganj, in Ludhiana. A three-storey building consisting of 17 classrooms is slated to be constructed here. (Gurpreet Singh/HT)

The foundation stone of the Rs 2-crore project was laid at the site last year in June. A three-storey building consisting of 17 classrooms is slated to be constructed at the site.

However, a visit to the site revealed that only the piling work was done and the contractor had spent Rs 35 lakh from his own pocket. The workers stated that earlier due to the lockdown, the construction had come to a halt. After it was resumed last month, the piling work was done.

Kuldeep Sood of RS Builder and Contractor said, “We started the construction work a week before the lockdown was imposed and had to stop after that. We resumed work a month ago and have completed the piling work so far. Labour has to be paid, but the higher authorities have not released even a penny.”

In 2014, 13 classrooms of the government school at Millerganj had been declared unsafe by the public works department after which the 300-odd students of classes 1 to 8 were shifted to another building and the former structure was demolished.

Only last year, the state education department had decided to come up with a new government school and to utilise this land to construct a new building. In Millerganj area, there is one government senior secondary school that caters to students from nearby areas that has been running in double shifts for the last six years.

The school education secretary, Krishan Kumar, could not be reached for comments.