MANGALDAI, June 13 - The damaged classroom of Mangaldai Vidyapith has become a cause of serious concern for the parents and guardians of those students who attend classes in establishments constructed under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan (RMSA) in Darrang district. Now the parents are worried about the quality of construction work of such establishments following the incident of Mangaldai Vidyapith on Monday when a sizeable portion of the concrete floor of a newly-constructed additional classroom collapsed in a jolt of moderate intensity earthquake leading to injuries to a couple of students during the class hours.
The earthquake of moderate intensity rocked the State at around 10:30 am causing severe damage to the school building reportedly constructed under the RMSA, with the fund for 2011-12 financial year. The State PWD (Building) was the implementing agency. The incident occurred in the classroom of Class VIII of the school.
Two students � Mahesh Deka and Kapil Das, sustained injuries in the incident.
Officials and staff of different government departments, including Inspector of Schools, Darrang, Nagen Boro; Project Engineer of the RMSA, Darrang, Dhrubajyoti Nath; rushed to the school to assess the situation.
Talking to this correspondent, Inspector of Schools Boro ruled out any possibility of announcing departmental inquiry into the incident. On the other hand, Project Engineer of the RMSA, Nath, said that the classroom with a size of eight metres by 6.5 metres was constructed along with three other rooms of the same sizes in 2015-16 under the technical supervision of PWD (Building), Mangaldai subdivision.
The RMSA sanctioned an amount of Rs 21.89 lakh for the work. However, surprisingly work was allotted to a contractor at around Rs 16.76 lakh, nearly 24 per cent below the sanctioned amount. Project Engineer Nath has not ruled out the possibility of collapse of the remaining portion of the floor of the room.
Meanwhile, Head Mistress of the school, Munmuni Dutta, has decided to lock the room until the reconstruction of the floor to avoid any possible risk for the students.
The incident has clearly brought the quality of works of all the school buildings constructed in recent times in the district under the scanner.
