Lucknow: With less than two weeks to go before the current financial year comes to a close, the first Central School sanctioned during UPA government for Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s constituency — Amethi may be withdrawn due to non-availability of land.
Just before last year’s Lok Sabha elections, the school was approved for Amethi to be opened in the financial year 2014-15. Since the land for the same was to be provided by the Uttar pradesh government, the Amethi MP had proposed to give a plot in Jais area as, reportedly, there was no proper secondary school in the vicinity.
However, in the past one year, the state government could not find any appropriate land for setting up of the Central School in the particular area. With the financial year now nearing its end, the UP government last week sent a proposal to Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) proposing gram sabha land for the school in another area — Fursatganj.
KVS will now be sending a special team to the spot proposed for conducting feasibility study.
“We could not find any appropriate land in Jais. While we have proposed a vacant portion on irrigation office campus in Jais for temporary arrangement, the actual land has been proposed in adjoining Fursatganj area. We have written to the KVS to conduct the feasibility of the proposed land,” said Jagat Raj, District Magistrate, Amethi. He said that the proposed land is spread over 8 acres.
On the other hand, P V S Ranga Rao, Deputy Commissioner, KVS, Varanasi Region, said, “We waited for one year and wrote several letters to the state government, but there was no response. This Friday, I received a communication from them that they have identified some land. Since there is very less time left, our team would be visiting Amethi on March 18 to conduct the feasibility study”.
He, however, added that if things “do not materialise then proposal would be withdrawn”.
Meanwhile, district Congress unit in Amethi, which was so far adamant on getting the land only in Jais, has now no objection to the new proposal. “Both Jais and Fursatganj fall under the same Bahadurpur block. It is important to have Central School, be it anywhere,” said district party president Yogendra Mishra.
It may be mentioned here that in February 2014, UPA government had approved three new Central Schools under Varanasi region of KVS that covers parts of UP and Bihar. The two other schools in the region were sanctioned for Kushinagar and Siddharth Nagar districts, which already have started their preliminary operations.