Calcutta, Aug. 14 :     State school education minister Kanti Biswas and state CPM general secretary Anil Biswas, both heavyweights of the ruling party, are at loggerheads over allotment of government funds to a Christian missionary school in Calcutta. While the school education minister is determined not to allot a grant for the school, the CPM state general secretary is bent on doing so. Anil Biswas is all concern for the CIT Road branch of Holy Child School, run by the Roman Catholic Church, because his daughter studied at the school's Beadon Street branch. Even though Anil Biswas' daughter has passed out of the school, he, as a responsible father, had no option but to reassure the nuns, who run the institution, when they sought his intervention to solve the funds problem. Since the late seventies, there have been disputes between the school authorities and the state government over funding. Though the school was already enrolling a large number of students, the state government refused to grant affiliation to it because it was run by Christian missionaries. After much persuasion, the state government did agree to grant affiliation but on condition that it would not bear the burden of running the high school - Class IX and Class X. Since it had no choice, the school accepted the government's condition. But in the following years, the government stopped providing aid for middle school as well, said Sister Philomia, the school's headmistress. 'Because of the financial crisis, we may have to close the school in a few years' time,' she said. According to the headmistress, they had requested the school education minister to consider their demand, but in vain. Anil Biswas said he had discussed the matter with the education minister. He, however, denied he was doing the school a favour because his daughter had studied there. 'At least 11 other Christian missionary schools are facing similar problems and we are trying to sort them out,' he said. The headmistress said unlike many other Christian missionary-run institutions in Calcutta, the CIT Road Holy Child institution mainly catered to middle-class students. 'So we can't raise the fees,' she said. Kanti Biswas, however, sticks to his guns. 'They (the school) had given us the undertaking that they would not claim any financial aid. How can they expect us to give funds now?' said Biswas. However, the school is hopeful that Anil Biswas will do the needful, because the state government had accepted a long-standing demand of Christian missionaries in Calcutta for exemption of SC, ST and OBC reservation from eight of its colleges, after the state CPM secretary had intervened. Among these colleges are St Xavier's, Loreto, Scottish Church, St Paul's and United Missionary B.Ed College.