Cuttack, Aug. 16: Odisha government has admitted in Orissa High Court that the anganwadi centre, where seven children were killed in July owing to collapse of a wall, was functioning under compulsion in an old dilapidated school building for the past two years.

The incident had occurred at Nelia Upper Primary School at Suansia Sahi under Ranpur block in Nayagarh district when children were taking meals on July 9.

In an affidavit, Nayagarh collector Saroj Kanta Choudhury said the headmistress of the school had not allowed the two anganwadi centres at Suansia Sahi and Kadamba Sahi to function either in the formal school building or in the the verandah.

“So under duress, the anganwadi centres were functioning in the corridor of the old dilapidated building, while cooking was organised in a room, the wall of which had collapsed”, Choudhury stated in the affidavit.

“Both the anganwadi centres were functioning in the dilapidated school building since 2010. All the supervisory officers were aware of the dilapidated condition of the school building”, the affidavit said, while admitting that there was “lack of supervision, monitoring and negligence”.

The Nayagarh collector filed the affidavit in response to a notice issued by the high court on a PIL filed by human rights activist advocate Prabir Kumar Das.

The division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice S. K. Mishra, before which the PIL came up for hearing today, took note of the affidavit and posted the matter to August 22.

The affidavit further admitted that Odisha Primary Education Project Authority (OPEPA) officials had neglected their duty “in not adjudging viability” of the building that collapsed during construction of the new building of the school and “suggesting for declaration of the building as unsafe”.

While focusing on the issue of safety of children at anganwadi centres, Das had sought direction to the state government to constitute a task force immediately to study the buildings across Odisha where anganwadi centres are operating to take preventive measures to avert such tragic incidents in future.

“The vulnerability of dilapidated buildings (which house the anganwadi centres) to incessant rain as it happened in the case at hand (at Ranpur) should be of paramount concern as the rainy season has already started in the state,” the PIL said, while seeking direction to the Odisha government to pay compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the parents of each deceased child.

According to the petition, 80 per cent of the 71,134 anganwadi centres in Odisha do not have their own building even as adequate funds are sanctioned by the Central government for construction of buildings for such purposes. As many as 17,134 have own buildings 16,974 centres operate in nearby schools.