RAWALPINDI: No good deed goes unpunished. At least that’s the lesson that students of the Government Boys Elementary School in Pirwadhai’s Bangash Colony are currently learning.

For nearly two years, the school’s meagre campus has been unable to accommodate all the students who have been enrolled here. Classrooms are chock full of students seated on the floor, huddled together like hens in a pen. Many classes had been shifted outdoors for want of more space to accommodate pupils.

But recently, the school had a stroke of good luck when a non-governmental organisation (NGO), hearing of the school’s plight, offered to build more classrooms on the decrepit campus.

After obtaining a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Education Department, the school administration began building two new classrooms with the NGO’s help. However, this godsend was stopped in its tracks only days later when a team from the Water and Sanitation Authority (Wasa) showed up to rain on their parade.

Wasa halts NGO-supported construction of new classrooms at govt school in Pirwadhai

They claimed that since there was a Wasa water tower located on the school’s premises, they and the local Town Municipal Administration (TMA) were the custodians of the land and ordered a halt to all work on the site. “Construction has been halted for the last 18 days and we are very worried,” said Saleem Raza, assistant director of planning at the Education Department. He said that building work should be restarted as soon as possible, in the interest of the students that were missing out on a proper classroom environment.

Wasa has posted a permanent guard outside of the under-construction classrooms. Idarat Hussain, the watchman, told Dawn, “I have been ordered not to allow anyone to carry out further construction on this site.”

But teachers from the unfortunate school told Dawn that a lack of classrooms and furniture had led to several children dropping out.

“We were delighted when the NGO contacted us and offered to help us construct new classrooms. It was too good to be true, but then Wasa appeared out of nowhere and shattered our dreams,” a teacher at the school told Dawn.

The school currently has 470 students, most of whom belong to underprivileged families. The campus only has four rooms for eight classes, but the Education Department has made no efforts to resolve the issue.

The school was built two years ago, thanks to the efforts of former PML-N MPA Zakaullah Shah, on a small piece of land that was previously being used by Wasa.

At present, both the school and the Wasa water tower are located inside the same premises.

“The classrooms are being built inside the boundary wall of the school and construction should be restarted immediately. I fear that due to this departmental row, the NGO may stop funding the construction work, said Shahid Latif, a local political leader.

“When it comes to availing their perk and privileges, the bureaucrats bend all the rules. But when our children’s future is at stake, they become sticklers for the rules,” said Atif Khan, a resident of the area.

Wasa Managing Director Raja Shoukat told Dawn, “We have our concerns about the construction work, because any expansion of the school will disrupt our installed equipment,” he said, adding that the TMA was the custodian of the land and without its approval, the Education Department could not carry out any extension work.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2014