The lock up belongs to the Excise Department where criminals are detained during night. During day time, the school is being run for the local girls.
The said building, under Purnia Municipal Corporation ward no 7, was handed over to the Excise Department 50 years ago, where it has a lock up too. However, much to everyone’s amusement, a government school for girls — Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya — was opened a few years back. Obviously, the educational atmosphere has been vitiated due to the presence of criminals on the premises and storage of liquor in the building.
The matter was raised in the Bihar Assembly, too, where RJD legislator Abdul Bari Siddiqui said: “A government school is opened only after the prior approval of the district administration. So how could a school and a lock up co-exist? Has the Nitish regime taken any action against the Purnia DM and the district education officer for such a lapse?”
Embarrassed after being caught on the wrong foot, Bihar’s Excise and Prohibition Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav admitted that the school was being run in the “hajat” of the Excise Department.
This is not the first time that a school has been encroached. In Patna, a major portion of the AN College campus is still being occupied by CRPF personnel despite the issue being raised in the Assembly several times.
DH News Service