Suhail Bhat
SRINAGAR, Aug 30: Work on a new building for the District Institute of Education & Training (DIET) in Pampore town of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district has been on hold for over three years due to lack of funding.
An official told Excelsior that the lack of progress on this ten-year-old project is especially upsetting because the structure is nearly finished and it only needs a few finishing touches before being handed over to the Education department.
The project began in 2011 under the National Conference-Congress Government, and the funds were initially stable. “However, when the Government changed, and I suppose the policies changed as well. The money stopped up immediately once the Government changed,” an official of the Education department
The facility would provide district teachers with training and help them enhance their performance. However, the Government’s failure to finish the facility has given a feeling that Government’s non-serious attitude towards education.
“We are currently in its eleventh year, and the building is completely empty. Despite the fact that so much money has already been spent on this project, the district’s teachers are training in a shanty room at the local higher secondary school,” an official in the Education department said.
He said since its inception in 2011, construction has progressed slowly, causing the project to become overstretched. Even after 10 years, the project, which was supposed to be finished in two to three years, is still unfinished.
With an estimated cost of Rs 4.78 crore, the project was handed over to the Roads and Buildings Department (R&B), and development continued at a steady pace until 2014.
However, the project was disrupted frequently after that, and it was finally halted few years back, with no headway in the project for the last three years. “The building work was progressing well until 2014, but after that, the Government virtually abandoned the project,” a teacher said.
The project was initially undervalued, according to officials at the Roads and Buildings department. “The cost escalated manifold with the passage of time. If we went out to build a structure like that now, it will cost twice as much,” an official said, adding that they created a fresh project report in 2018 in order to complete it and hand over the building but their proposal never saw the light of day.
Manzoor Ahmad, a Junior Executive Engineer, with the Roads and Buildings Department in Pampore, told Excelsior that they had amended the detailed project report and submitted it to the concerned authorities. “A new DPR has been submitted, and work will resume once it is approved,” he said.
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