Dehradun: With no land or building, a government primary school (Rajakiya Prathamik Vidyalaya) of Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district, has been running under the open sky for the past six years on a private land in Pipal Hattha village, about 45km from Sitarganj. Now they are set to lose even that as the owner of the land, Ramno Devi, has asked the school authority to vacate it within three months.On November 17, 2012, the school had got affiliated to the government of Uttarakhand. Devi, a resident of Pipal Hattha village, had offered her land to the school authority then to use it temporarily, till they got a piece of land from the government. That never happened and Devi has now asked the school to shift elsewhere.Jang Bahadur Singh, Devi’s eldest son, said “The students, teachers and all our family members use the same washroom. They also use our kitchen daily to prepare mid-day meals. It gets difficult for our family. They even use our room to keep essentials like almirahs, blackboards etc. So, we have given them an ultimatum to shift the school.” However, deputy education officer Sushma Gaurav went to Pipal Hattha recently to meet Devi and persuaded her to allow the school to use her land for another three months.At present, the school has 44 students. Every day, they gather at the field and sit under a tree after cleaning the ground. There are two blackboards. When it rains, the classes shift to a cowshed . The school has eight students each in class 1 and 2, thirteen students in class 3, eight students in class 4 and seven students in class 5.Speaking to TOI, Vinay Jaiswal and Karan Singh, two of the teachers at Pipal Hattha government primary school said, “We started our journey from November, 2012. We run the school under a tree. When it rains, the students shift to a cowshed. The children are very unsafe in this premises. We have written to several departments in this regard.”Paramjit Kaur, gram pradhan of Ukroli Gram Sabha said “I know of the matter and we are trying our best to solve the problem. All villagers have met the local MLA about it. We have talked to different companies, and they agreed to build a school building if we allot the land.”However, even after six years, neither the education department nor local politicians have initiated any efforts to solve the land issue or construct a building. When TOI approached BJP MLA of Sitarganj constituency, Saurabh Bahuguna, he said “Most of the land in this area is owned by State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand (SIDCUL) or the jail authority. It is not easy to procure land here. I talked to the education minister and hopefully we will be able do something very soon. It is a lengthy process because of the land transfer involved. We are working on it and I have met the villagers about it.”District education officer of Udham Singh Nagar, Ravi Mehta, said “Most of the land here belongs to the forest department, where the construction of a building is not possible. However, the department has extended all possible help to the children regarding their education. The district education department has assured them that if any revenue land is available, it will be allotted to the school on a priority basis.”

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