The school where classes have to be held in the open because of the crumbling building. Picture by Amit Biswas

Krishnagunj, Feb. 26: A village boy from Nadia who went on to become a well-to-do businessman in the Gulf has decided to rebuild the crumbling school which he first attended.

Ananda Biswas, 52, who went to Songhata Primary School some 45 years ago, wrote to the primary school council last month, saying he wanted to fund the revamp. He has got the nod.

Worried that if government-appointed contractors rebuilt the school the work may not be good enough, Ananda, a builder in Sharjah, wanted to engage his own labourers. “I promise you it will be sturdy,” he wrote.

Twenty of them have already begun work.

Classes at the Songhata school in Krishnagunj, about 110km from Calcutta, are now held in the open as the headmaster doesn’t want to risk taking the children inside the dilapidated building. “When it rains, we declare a holiday,” said Patit Paban De.

“We had sought the opinion of an architect who told us that the building should be declared condemned. After that I wrote several letters to many people. But only one room was rebuilt,” the headmaster said.

Jayanta Saha, whose son is in Class III, said the child often returned home drenched. “When I asked him why, he told me that they were having classes in the open when the rain started,” said Saha, a garment trader.

District primary school council chairman Bibhas Biswas said: “Many schools in Nadia are in bad shape. We are taking them up one by one.”

He was “overwhelmed” by Ananda’s gesture.

The headmaster said during one of Ananda’s visits to Songhata in October 2007, he had told the former student about the plight of the 50-year-old school.

“He saw the dilapidated building and promised help immediately. Ananda said he was ready to spend Rs 3 lakh on the construction,” said De.

Ananda, a poor boy from Songhata, had gone to Dubai as a construction labourer in the 1980s. He has his own business in Sharjah now.

“When the headmaster called me to my old school, I was overwhelmed. I knew I had to do something for it,” he said over the phone.

“I recalled my days in the school when the building was new. I assured the headmaster that he need not worry and the responsibility of bringing it back to shape was mine,” he added.