School Board sets up own Inquiry committee
By - Sonal Kellog

An eight-year-old boy was buried to death in a municipal school. The Municipal Commissioners suspends schooling till June 30 and orders an Inquiry. What do you think is the reaction of the School Board? Its chairman, Dr. Ganpat Parmar, announces that the Commissioner does not have the authority to suspend schooling in municipal schools or order an inquiry "as the Board is an independent unit."

Clearly, priorities are wrong somewhere in the system. Following this, Parmar announced the setting up of a three-member committee to investigate into Aftabalam’s death. Parmar also said if any two of the three investigating agencies — the Police, the Commissioner’s panel and the Board committee — hold the School Board responsible for the incident, he will quit as chairman.

Meanwhile, Deputy Municipal Commissioner Vinay Vyasa,who was conducting an inquiry, submitted his report to Kailasnathan. However, he refused to provide details. Kailasnathan was in Gandhinagar and was not available for comments. An emergency meeting of the Board was held on Wednesday, where it was decided that a compensation of Rs 10,000 would be given to the bereaved family. The sum will be handed over on Thursday morning at a condolence meeting.

The Board also decided to provide Rs 10,000 each to the families of other 13 municipal school students who died in building collapses in Amraiwadi and Khanpur on January 26. Rukhiben Rana, principal of school number 17 and Sarojini Matthaeus Parmar, principal of school number 17, on Wednesday gave their statements to East Zone officials, stating that they had not started education activity in the school.

They said that 129 of the total 800 students reached school that day, after which a prayer meeting was held and the students were asked to disperse. Rana said she did not prevent the contractor from pulling down the structure, but asked him "not to demolish rooms which contained records like-leaving certificates."

The State Government has decided to provide assistance of Rs. 5 crore to repair the 101 AMC-run schools, which were damaged in the quake. Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel said the AMC had already been provided Rs 17 crore for schools in Ahmedabad city and that the Rs5crore were for the AMC.

Republished from The Indian Express