Teachers confined

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Aug 23: Demanding revival of mid-day meal at the Nityanandapur Primary School in English Bazaar block, agitating villagers confined four teachers, including the headmaster of the school, for over five hours inside the school today. The English Bazaar block development officer, Mr Ananda Sarkar, was also heckled in presence of police personnel. It was learnt that the mid-day meal project was suspended due to administrative failure following an altercation between two self-help groups assigned to cook the meal in the school. The agitators agreed to release the teachers after 4 p.m after the police and block development officials ensured them revival of the project after resolving the problem that led to its suspension. The headmaster of the school, Mr Hari Pada Mondal, admitted that the attendance of the students has dropped by half from what it used to be when the meal project was on. It was learnt that the Congress-run Kazigram gram panchayat pradhan Mr Goutam Choudhury, as chairman of the village education committee, had appointed a local women’s self-help group for cooking mid-day meal in the school a year ago. Trouble broke out when the acting gram panchayat pradhan backed by the CPI-M, appointed another self-help group in the school for the same job. The Congress-backed pradhan, Mr Choudhury, recently recaptured his chair in the Kazigram panchayat and took initiative to re-introduce the mid-day meal project by way of the agitation staged today, political sources said.