A teacher takes a class at the confiscated Rukkanpura house of IAS officer SS Verma on Thursday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Sept. 8: For 92 children, school suddenly got very different today.

At 9am, the children, all of them from Dalit families, trooped into the plush house that was once the home of suspended IAS officer Shiva Shankar Verma at Rukkanpura on Bailey Road. At the entrance was a board proclaiming that the three-storeyed building was now the “Prathmik Vidyalaya Rukkanpura Musahari”.

Verma is the first graft-tainted bureaucrat against whom action has been taken ever since the Nitish Kumar regime enacted the Bihar Special Court Bill, 2009, empowering the administration to confiscate ill-gotten assets of government officials.

The Patna district administration handed over the house to the education officer late on Wednesday evening.

The students were overjoyed with their classrooms, well-appointed rooms replete with mosaic marble flooring — a far cry from the dreary, two-room house where the school was earlier located.

Rajesh Kumar, a student of Class V, summed up the collective euphoria. “I have never seen such a beautiful classroom in my life,” he gushed. “It seems we are being taught in some kind of hotel room where the floors are so neat and clean. Earlier, we used to study in very difficult conditions and the two rooms we had were in bad shape with water leaking through the ceiling.”

“It’s a new home for me now. It’s much better to sit on the floor as it is more comfortable than the wooden benches we had,” said another student Rahul Kumar.

Many parents also accompanied their children to the new premises. “I still can’t believe that my children will study here now. They will get more space to play and study in. But this house does not look like a school and I am happy that my children will get an opportunity to study in a bungalow,” said Sushma Devi, a mother.

Principal Usha Sinha said at present two rooms would be used for taking classes while one has been earmarked as the administrative office.

During the lunch break, some children played in the rooms while others made a beeline for the swing in the garden. “The floors of the rooms are so smooth that I slipped and fell several times while playing,” giggled Pooja Kumari.

Many of the children were awestruck at seeing the western toilet for the first time, “Are we supposed to sit on it or do we stand on it? I have never seen this kind of bathroom and toilet, it’s neat and clean. I can even sleep here,” said Brajesh Yadav.

Most of the students could not understand the use of geyser which is installed in every bathroom and were amazed to know its utility.