Calcutta, Oct. 7: A school that stands testimony to Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das lies crumbling in a south Calcutta lane.

With just 63 students on its rolls, the Bengal government-aided school struggles to keep itself afloat much due to lack of infrastructure and its crumbling structure.

Having spent his formative years studying law here, Utkalmani, whose 139th birth anniversary will be celebrated this Sunday, witnessed the torture and atrocities poor Odias, many of whom had come to Calcutta in search of livelihood, suffered.

To organise these labourers, he set up a school for them at a garage in south Calcutta's Padmapukur in 1928. As it began to draw workers from households, shops, hotels and garages, Gopabandhu christened it the Sramajibi Vidyalaya. Following his death, the school prefixed his name as a tribute. The school continues to attract children from Odia families living in the city, but it is struggling to make ends meet amid for lack of funds. The school's rich past had it effect on former Odisha chief minister Biju Patnaik, who had donated Rs 10,000 to the institution.

Headmaster Bijoy Patnaik said: "The lack of infrastructure, popularity of English-medium schools and the financial condition of the Odia community here have reduced student intake."

He said that while the dropout rate was low, many students returned to Odisha after completing their primary education (till Class IV).

A few steps ahead and in the same building, Gopabandhu Vidyalaya, the high school section of Sramajibi Vidyalaya, is struggling in equal measure. It was set up in 1980 as Sramajibi's junior high section by a group of Odias living here.

Sramajibi and its sister institution are among five Odia medium schools in Bengal, three of which are in Calcutta.

The school has 150 students, and 34 of them took the Class X exam this year with a pass percentage of 93. Headmaster Prafulla Chandra Panda said the students were from lower-middle class families, who could not afford education in private English medium schools.

As with all state government aided schools, the students here are entitled to midday meals, uniforms and books. However, the similarities in the syllabus between the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and Odisha's Board of Secondary Education have helped students tide over the problem of textbooks.

The Odisha government pitches in with textbooks in Odia for those studying till Class VI. But others do not have the same privilege as the syllabi of the two boards differ. The students have to depend on textbooks and question papers written in Bengali, but they can write their Class X board examinations in Odia.

Schoolteacher Satyaranjan Barik said a delegation had met officials of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education regarding Odia-printed textbooks and question papers, but nothing has happened.

"Our teachers help with the translation if we face problems in class, but they won't be there in the examination hall. We certainly would prefer question papers in Odia," said Class IX student Sarat Nayak.

But textbooks are a small problem when compared to the dilapidated condition of the school building.

Recently, a chunk from the building's parapet came crashing down during heavy rain. "We were fortunate as the incident occurred around 6.40pm when school was closed," Panda said. The only time the building was repaired was with funds from former Left Front MPs Biplab Dasgupta and Prasanta Chatterjee.

Panda said: "We have a lot of problems - lack of funds and functioning from a dilapidated, century-old building are just the tip of the iceberg."

For the students, attending classes in a ramshackle building is not the end of their troubles. Most students who pass out from the school are forced to take up Bengali as their first language at the higher secondary level. Panda said that this year, two Calcutta schools refused to admit their students because they lacked Odia teachers.

"It is usually the girls who face difficulty in joining higher secondary schools," Barik said.

For now, however, Panda, Patnaik and their students can only hope that their fortunes see a revival in future and with it the legacy of Utkalmani Gopabandhu.