Irregularities mark Strawberry Fields school construction

Certain top bureaucrats of the Chandigarh Administration are already in the dock and facing a CBI inquiry,for allegedly favouring the Durga Dass Foundation by allotting additional Floor-Area-Ratio in Strawberry school,after the stipulated time period for it had already elapsed.

According to documents procured under the Right to Information Act (RTI),Strawberry school’s building plans,sanctioned in May 2009,show seven parking lots. However,a visit to the school premises clearly reveals that there are only two small parking lots in the front of the building. While a small parking lot (shown as bus parking in the building plan) is outside the boundary wall,another one exists inside the boundary wall and can accommodate eight-10 vehicles. Interestingly,the school buses are never parked in the designated bus-parking lot and are,instead,parked at the government land on the other side of the road opposite the school building.

The Chandigarh Administration had also initiated a move to construct a parking lot at the said government land,incurring a cost of Rs 53 lakh for accommodating vehicles of visitors to the school. The same move was,however,scuttled when certain municipal councillors raised serious objections to it,followed by the CBI registering an enquiry against Chandigarh Administration officials for allegedly extending ‘undue’ favours to the foundation running Strawberry school.

The Chandigarh Administration’s Education Department had already derecognised Strawberry school on the basis of certain violations and recommended the same to the ICSE board,for further necessary action,which is awaited. According to the norms,the building plans are submitted to the building branch of UT Estate Office. The plans are only sanctioned once officials of the Estate Office visit the site,inspect it,find it according to norms,tally it with the building plans submitted and issue a completion certificate to the site allottee. However,in this case,eyebrows are being raised on how the Estate Office had sanctioned the building plans of Strawberry school showing seven parking lots,while the situation is entirely different on the ground.

Sub-Divisional Officer V K Jain,who is in charge of the Building Branch,said,“There could be certain violations but we need to check. I have called the file for inspection and would get it checked. We need to know how this happened. Frankly speaking,I am new in this branch. I dont know how and what my predecessors did. We are short-staffed and cannot go and inspect each and every site. In case there are violations,we levy a fine on the violator and certain violations are condoned. For the violations that could not be condoned,we serve notices to the violator and he has the liberty to contest them in court.”