Students of Middle School at Bage Bustee attend an open-air lesson. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, Jan. 30: Over 150 boys and girls of Middle School at Bage Bustee will be forced to study in the open as construction work on their new building was brought to a halt after the district administration claimed they were on the wrong plot.

The school authorities claim they had been given the go-ahead to build on plot no. 22, while the land surveyor of the administration had demarcated plot no. 25 for it. Now the school claims the surveyor made an error which the district administration is not about to agree.

“Last year, the district administration and Tata Steel had granted us a no objection certificate (NOC) to construct four rooms on plot no. 22. The area is not far from where we presently hold open-air classes,” said teacher Mita Dey. The land surveyor allotted plot no. 25 for the school building by mistake, the school authorities alleged. “Work was on in full swing and then we were told by the district administration that we were building on the wrong plot and hence the construction should stop,” said Samatua Hembrom, the bustee secretary.

According to Hembrom, over Rs 2 lakh has been spent on the new building already. The district education department had sanctioned Rs 4.23 lakh for building four classrooms.But the district superintendent of education, Purnanad Singh, who is looking into the matter, said the land surveyor would most likely get a clean chit and that the school teachers seemed to be at fault.

“The land surveyor gives the exact location of your plot on the paper. The teachers have probably made a mistake in taking the information. If found guilty, the school teacher responsible for the construction would have to pay a penalty We would redeem the amount spent so far on the construction work and the building would have to be reconstructed on another plot,” he said.

Investigations are still on and a final decision would be taken soon.

Meanwhile, residents of Bage Bustee have joined the fight for the new school building. A group, including students, teachers and residents recently met deputy commissioner of East Singhbhum Rabindra Agarwal and demanded shelter for conducting classes. They also demanded an NOC for constructing the new building on plot no. 25 itself.

“Due to an error on the land surveyor’s part our children have to suffer. Our school has four teachers and now our student strength has started plummeting thanks to the open-air lessons,” a school teacher alleged. The school authorities said they would leave the plot assigned to them if the administration allowed them to continue with the construction on plot no. 22.

Soon it will be summer and studying in the open would become difficult for students. It is unfortunate that even after having funds to construct a new building, students are deprived of classrooms, schoolteachers maintained.