Minati Sen inaugurates the new building of the Buddhist school. A Telegraph picture

Siliguri, Oct. 19: The Salugara branch of the Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association (HBCA) has urged the member of Parliament from Jalpaiguri, Minati Sen, to use her good offices to restore the grant-in-aid provided by the Union ministry of tribal affairs to the school run by it.

The HBCA said the ministry has recently told them that it has stopped the aid since it was reviewing the scheme under which the aid was granted.

The Himalayan Buddhist Cultural School had been receiving the grant-in-aid since 2000-2001. ?If the central assistance is stopped, the future of the students, comprising mainly tribal and needy people, would be in jeopardy as they cannot afford to get similar standard of education elsewhere,? said Sonam Lhundup, the HBCA secretary.

He was today speaking on the sidelines of a function to mark the inauguration of a new building of the school. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and other well-wishers of the association provided the funds for the building, which was formally inaugurated by Minati Sen.

Located at Salugara, the school was founded in 1996 with only 15 students. Today the number has gone up to 300. ?The school has classes from pre-nursery to Class VIII at the moment, but we eventually want to go up to Class XII. We hope to get affiliation from the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) very soon,? said Lhundup.

The school was started on the advice of the Dalai Lama, who wanted to make best use of the complex that was built to organise the Kalchakra (a Buddhist religious ceremony) at Salugara in 1996. The Dalai Lama himself had inaugurated the school then.

Besides Salugara, the HBCA, which has its headquarters in Delhi, has similar institutes at Leh and Zanskar in Ladakh, Bomdilla in Arunachal Pradesh and Manali in Himachal Pradesh.