Aatif Qayoom
Kupwara, Jul 03 (KNS): Despite elapsing many years since its completion, the education department has miserably failed to make a school building functional in Banddaji Nowgam village of Mawer area of Handwara in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district.

The building for Government Primary School in Bandjai Nowgam was constructed years ago but is yet to be made functional for students, while as the locals alleged that building is being used by the contractor for his personal use.

As per reports, this school building was constructed by a local who had donated his land for the construction of school building and in return he was told that he will be given a work to complete this school building.

The locals told Kashmir News Service (KNS) that the basic structure of the new building for the school was completed years ago but the contractors pending amount of Rs four to five lakhs was not released by the Education Department.

“The building was almost complete but the contractor claimed that the department is not clearing his pending bills so he took this building for his personal use,” locals said, adding that “our children are being forced to walk miles to reach high school Nowgam which is two kilometers away from the village, during rainy days it becomes tough for them to reach the school.

Chief Education Officer (CEO) Kupwara, Mohd Shafi told KNS that he has no information about the school but claimed that “we have pending amount of some newly constructed buildings, this issue has been taken up with Director School Education and we hope that this issue will be resolved soon”

He further said the amount which was released for these building has been used for the construction of bathrooms in many schools. (KNS)