Author: Our Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: December 28, 2003
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031228/asp/bengal/story_2727004.asp
When the government is working overtime
to push the state's literacy rate up to 80 per cent, 450 children have
not been able to attend school since the pujas for no fault of theirs.
The way to Natungram- Purbapara
Primary School in Katwa, 180 km from Calcutta, has been fenced off with
bamboo poles and barbed wire.
The students used to take the path
through a paddy field to reach the school, more than 30 years old. That
was the only approach to the school building.
Classes have now been suspended.
The students come to the approachway every day, the teachers register their
attendance and send them home.
"What can we do? It is impossible
for us to take classes in the open. So we have decided to suspend classes
till the problem is solved," said Tapan Guha, the headmaster.
Villagers alleged that the fence
was erected at the behest of local CPM leaders who wanted to avenge the
party's defeat in the panchayat polls at the hands of the Congress. "The
CPM wants to take revenge by creating stumbling blocks before the Congress-led
Khajurdihi gram panchayat. If the students cannot go to school, the panchayat
authorities will be discredited," said a villager.
The president of the district primary
school council, Saidul Haq, admitted that the school was not functioning
since the Puja vacation. "The owner of the land, used by the students and
teachers to reach the school, is not agreeing to spare the path for the
use of the school. That is the only way to reach the school. So the four
teachers are taking attendance outside the school campus," he said.
Haq has sought the intervention
of the district administration. Katwa subdivisional officer Subir Chatterjee
said he was trying his best. "I have asked the block development officer
to ensure that the problem is solved in the next 10 days," he said.
Sources in the Burdwan administration
said if students are not allowed to use the path within 10 days, the land
will be acquired and a permanent route to the school made.
The owner of the land, Mohammad
Sheikh, a CPM worker, said there was no politics. He fenced off his land
to protect his crops. "I may be a CPM worker but I fenced off the land
because the students could destroy my crops," he said.
