Abdul Lateef Jahagirdar, a farmer from Firozabad village in Kalaburagi district, has come forward to donate one acre of his agricultural land to construct a government high school which has been functioning in a primary health centre in the village for the last eight years.
Nearly 100 families in Firozabad village were rehabilitated to houses established by Infosys Foundation under its ‘Aasare’ project on the outskirts of the village after their houses were damaged by floods back in 2011.
Following the shortage of classrooms in the government school building in the village, classes IX and X were shifted to the primary health centre constructed in Aasare rehabilitation locality, in turn shifting the health centre to a single room attached to the gram panchayat office.
The doctors’ consultant rooms, laboratory, and patients’ wards at the unused health centre have been turned into staffrooms and classrooms, and there is no separate chamber for the headmaster. A portion of the wall of each classroom coloured with black paint is the teaching board. Some of the classrooms do not have stone flooring. The building does not have toilets nor proper drinking water facility for students. As many as 138 students, including Kannada and Urdu medium, study here.
The midday meal is prepared in a rented room near the school. Students, carrying their plates, have to walk nearly 100 metres to get their meal every day. Due to lack of seating arrangements, the students have to find a place on the stretch between the school and the midday meal centre to eat.
Headmaster Allauddin Tehsildhar says that he tried in vain to get land for the construction of the school. In the last eight years, Mr. Allauddin wrote to the Education Department and the district authorities several times, requesting to allot land for the school.
When the district authorities failed to respond, Mr. Jahagirdar came forward to donate his land situated in a prime location on the Kalaburagi-Vijayapura road. Though the government had released ₹1 crore fund for constructing the school two years ago, it was returned due to non- availability of land, Mr. Jahagirdar added.
“Earlier, when I expressed my willingness to donate land for the school, some villagers raised objections. Later, I announced making monetary donations of one lakh for construction work if someone donates the land. When no one came forward for the noble cause, I decided to give one acre of land to construct a high school in our village,” Mr. Jahagirdar said.
On August 10, Mr. Jahagirdar gave in writing a notarized affidavit on a stamp paper about his willingness to donate the land. Once the document procedures are completed, the land will be handed over to the Department of Public Instruction.
