Lucknow: It may sound impossible, particularly amid the perception of inaction in the governments in Uttar Pradesh, but it is true, well documented and not known to many in the state.
In an onerous task undertaken by a set of some well-meaning officers in the last decade in UP, all primary school buildings in the state, over twenty thousand in number and situated mostly in the rural parts, built after 2005-06 were constructed as per the earthquake-resistant norms.
It was a heavy-duty work undertaken across Uttar Pradesh , the biggest state of the country, and was adopted as  a policy matter for the times to come though the same could not be ensured in residential colonies by the various development authorities till date.
Every time there was an earthquake scare in the state, there was a review of earthquake-complied buildings and the government agencies are always found wanting.
The successful implementation of earthquake-resistant buildings in basic education of the state was a commendable feat and worth emulating, especially in the view that the primary schools buildings were constructed mainly by the Village Education Committees(VECs) and it was not easy to train illiterate and semi-literate lot  of earthquake-compliance techniques.
Such initiative was taken in 2005 onwards by the then project director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(Education for All) J S Deepak, a senior IAS officer of UP cadre currently on central deputation and posted as additional secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, and his the then additional project director Parthsarathy Sen Sharma,another senior IAS officer currently the secretary to the UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The focused approach of these officers not only ensured the immediate and effective implementation but trained various persons who can still be useful in not only basic education department but also in the other departments as well.
Talking to NewsMobile, Parthasarathy Sen Sharma said it was a monumental work at that time because it required additional money which was arranged from the Centre. Moreover, it was a pure technical work and the rural machinery had to be trained, he recalled. ” It was difficult because the education department is primarily not a construction agency and had to depend upon the outside experts to carry out the task. At times, I had to personally train the staff on site,” he remembers. Â
Anu Rathi, a consultant in the department, who was closely associated with the project, said the members of VECs had been trained by an expert team was from Orissa. The expert team first trained the master trainers like Village Pradhan, headmasters of the primary schools and officials of the department and later, the junior engineers and other construction personnel were trained.
J S Deepak, when contacted on phone, hoped the experiment initiated during his tenure could well spread to other parts of the country after that. The present Nepal earthquake scare could well be a trigger point to start afresh such activities.
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