A village in Birbhum that lacked access to education now has a primary school, thanks to two former students of Bengal Engineering College (now IIEST) and Banaras Hindu University who have joined hands with an NGO to develop the school.

The school building has come up on a piece of land that the two bought at Gangte village, about 12km from Birbhum’s Suri, to develop farmland and run a community kitchen to help a group of struggling villagers during the Covid pandemic.

While villagers continue to plough the farmland and earn by selling the produce, the former students of the two premier institutions have scaled up the project and set up a school on unused land.

Children from the village have enrolled in the school.

“The village did not have any schools. So we thought of starting a primary school there. Midday meal is cooked with the produce from the adjoining farmland. We have sought affiliation from the state primary education board,” said Debendra Narayan Chattopadhyay, a former student of Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur, now known as the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IISET).

The students who study at the school write their exams at a government-affiliated school at a nearby village.

Chattopadhyay, who runs a consultancy firm specialising in civil infrastructure, has been involved in philanthropic activities for several years.

The NGO Antyodoy Anath Ashram alerted Chattopadhyay and his friend Dipankar Roy, an alumnus of BHU, about the plight of the villagers during the pandemic.

He said they opened the community kitchen which fed the villagers for two-and-a-half years during the pandemic. The villagers would survive by begging in nearby towns, which stopped with the onset of the nationwide lockdown in March 2020.

“Now they plough and water land and sow seeds to grow pumpkin, gourd, eggplant, ladies’ finger, spinach and other vegetables, which are sold in the nearby market. We have now set sight on spreading the light of education among the next generation at the village,” said Chattopadhyay, a civil engineer.

While Roy, a mechanical engineer, and Chattopadhyay conceived the school, the NGO approached a company that contributed Rs 27 lakh to construct the building, which was inaugurated before the Puja.

The school, where 120 students has enrolled, has six rooms.

“The two of us being from the engineering background, we are involved in planning the foundation of the school. We have plans to extend the school to the upper primary and the secondary levels,” said Roy.

The two, with the help of their acquaintances, raise funds for uniforms, books and the salaries of the teachers.

“The village once survived by seeking alms. But we don’t want the children to grow up as beggars. The school has been set up to make them self-reliant,” Chattopadhyay said.

Balaram Karan, the secretary of Antyodoy Anath Ashram, said the project, which started with a community kitchen and has gifted a school to the village, has brought about a significant change to the lives of the 2,000-odd residents.

“The seniors no longer seek alms with the children. They work on the farm, which is spread across 2.5 bighas, and have become economically self-reliant by selling the produce they grow,” Karan said.

“We have been able to draw the children to the school where they also get midday meal. Child marriage has been an issue at the village. But with the start of the school, that problem has been arrested to some extent,” said Karan.

Chattopadhyay said: “We wanted to give the villagers a respectable way of living
with whatever help we could provide.”