A decade later, a school building in Uttar Pradesh is still in the making

A decade since it was sanctioned, the building of the proposed multi-storey school of state basic education department that was to come up at Kanshiram Awas Yojana in Phaphamau is yet not complete.

The basic education department had paid Rs 32 lakh for the construction of the school building to Prayagraj Development Authority (PDA) at the time but the building never got completed, officials of the education department admitted.

Two multi-storey schools were sanctioned by the then Mayawati-led BSP state government in 2010-11 under the Sarwa Shiksha Abhiyan at Jhalwa and Phaphamau at Kanshiram Awas Yojana.

The plan was to make available quality education to students of class 1 to class 8 under the same roof here. The state government had even sanctioned Rs 32 lakh each for the construction of the two school buildings.

The task of the construction was entrusted to PDA (then Allahabad development Authority) which started the construction work of both buildings in 2011.

By 2012, the multi-storey building of the school at Jhalwa got ready and students even started studying in it.

However at Phaphamau, boundary walls and ground floor were built but the roof over the rooms hasn’t been laid till now.

“This is an old issue and I am not aware about its status. We will take it up afresh and find out as to why the construction work remains incomplete after so many years despite payment having been made in advance,” said Sanjay Kumar Kushwaha, Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Prayagraj.

Basic education department officials maintain that payment to PDA was made on the instructions of the then district magistrate but shortly afterwards, the contractor who was entrusted with the work got blacklisted and the construction work came to a standstill. The officials say that many reminders in this regard have been sent to PDA but to no avail.