Guwahati, Feb. 1: An assurance of an interim grant of Rs 30 lakh from the government comforted Guwahati’s fire-ravaged Bengali Higher Secondary School today as it counted its losses and tried to rise from the ashes.

Bureaucrats and politicians, including education minister Ripun Bora, visited the school a day after the entire first floor of the building was gutted in the blaze.

Bora announced the grant of Rs 30 lakh, subject to chief minister Tarun Gogoi’s consent.

The first floor housed the science laboratory, the computer room and the arts classrooms.

East Guwahati legislator Robin Bordoloi, Rajya Sabha member Dwijen Sarma, Kamrup (metro) deputy commissioner Prateek Hajela, director of secondary education Mohsin Ali and inspector of schools Pratima Gogoi surveyed the damage.

Sarma sanctioned Rs 5 lakh from the MP’s local area development fund to rebuild the school, one of the oldest educational institutions of the state. “This school has given the state several prominent personalities. We should join hands to help the school in its hour of despair,” the MP said.

The deputy commissioner said an inquiry would be instituted to ascertain the cause of the fire. The school will remain closed indefinitely for want of classrooms. “We will make alternative arrangements. At this moment, it is difficult to say when classes will resume,” the president of the institution’s managing committee, Asish Banerjee, said.

The main source of worry for the school management is the matric examination, beginning on February 15. Over 200 students from different schools were supposed to sit for the examination in the building that caught fire.

The managing committee and teachers of the school will go into a huddle tomorrow to find a way out. Bordoloi said he would attend the meeting.

The managing committee has decided to open a website through which people can donate money to rebuild the school, one of the landmarks of Paltan Bazar. “I appeal to everyone to come forward and help the school regain its past glory,” Banerjee said.

Principal Utpala Sinha said losses were being assessed. “All the computers, laboratory equipment, desks and benches on the first floor were destroyed,” she said.

Students and teachers of the school were lucky that the fire broke out on a local holiday because of the Ahom festival Me-dum-me-phi.

The institution was known as the Silver Jubilee Anglo-Bengali High School before Independence. The then governor of Assam, Sir Michael Keane, inaugurated it on April 28, 1936.