THE BLINK | EDUCATION & GOVERNANCE: Established in 1892, Biswanathpur Government Upper Primary School in Khordha district has survived colonial rule, Independence and decades of state governments. Yet it still lacks land recorded in its name, adequate classrooms and essential teaching facilities.
Bhubaneswar | November 2, 2026: A government school established 134 years ago in Odisha continues to operate without land formally recorded in its name.
It has just four classrooms for nine classes, no dedicated science teacher and no playground.
The institution is not located in an inaccessible tribal or forest region.
It is Biswanathpur Government Upper Primary School in Balipatana block of Khordha district, the district that includes Odisha’s capital, Bhubaneswar.
The school was established in 1892, long before India’s Independence.
Today, it has 72 students enrolled from Sishu Vatika, the pre-primary level, through Class VIII.
But the institution has only four classrooms to accommodate all nine classes.
The situation raises a fundamental question about Odisha’s education system:
How can a government school function for more than a century without the administration resolving its land records and basic infrastructure requirements?
Four Classrooms, Nine Classes
According to a report published by OrissaPOST on November 2, the school has struggled for years with inadequate infrastructure.
The shortage of classrooms makes it difficult to conduct lessons for different age groups simultaneously.
The school has five teachers, but no dedicated science teacher.
It also lacks an art teacher.
A teacher is currently serving as headmaster-in-charge, while the institution requires a permanent headmaster.
The school management committee has reportedly submitted a written request to the Block Education Officer seeking a science teacher, but the position remains unfilled.
School Management Committee president Madan Bhoi has raised concerns over the continuing deficiencies.
The school’s problems extend beyond classrooms.
Its approach road becomes muddy and waterlogged during the monsoon.
Poor drainage causes water to accumulate on the premises.
The school has no playground, while its two toilets have been described as inadequate.
These conditions raise questions about the quality of the learning environment available to its students.
The Land Problem Has Blocked Development
One of the most serious findings is that the school does not have land formally recorded in its own name.
This has reportedly obstructed a proposal to transform the institution into a Godabarish Model School.
The precise legal status of the land remains an important unanswered question.
The absence of land records in the school’s name does not necessarily mean the institution occupies land illegally or that no land was ever donated for educational purposes.
It may reflect unresolved mutation, ownership or classification issues.
But after 134 years, the responsibility for clarifying those records rests squarely with the administration.
Who owns the land on which the school stands? Was it originally donated? If so, why was the transfer never completed?
And which government department is responsible for resolving the problem?
Odisha Had Already Ordered Land Regularisation
The case becomes more troubling when viewed against the state’s earlier administrative decisions.
In October 2021, Odisha’s School and Mass Education Department directed district collectors to regularise land records in favour of government and government-aided educational institutions by March 2022.
The department acknowledged that many schools had been functioning for years without land being formally recorded in their names.
Yet more than four years after that deadline, Biswanathpur reportedly remains affected by the same problem.
A separate report published in September 2026 revealed that Odisha had still not completed a comprehensive list of government schools without land in their names, despite the Education Department seeking information from district education officers approximately 18 months earlier.
The issue therefore appears to extend beyond one school.
If the state does not have a complete inventory of schools facing unresolved land-record problems, how can it systematically plan infrastructure expansion and school transformation?
A Failure Across Administrations
The Biswanathpur case cannot reasonably be attributed to a single government.
The school has existed since 1892.
Its infrastructure and land-record problems have persisted through successive administrations.
The previous BJD government must account for why the 2021 land-regularisation instructions did not resolve such cases.
The present BJP government must explain what action it has taken to identify and clear the remaining cases.
The issue is not political credit for announcing a model-school scheme.
It is whether the government can ensure that schools have the land, classrooms, teachers and facilities required to deliver education.
Officials Promise Action
Balipatana Block Development Officer Subhranshu Sekhar Padhi has reportedly assured that accumulated waste on the school premises will be cleared in coordination with the local gram panchayat.
Block Education Officer Narayan Das, who recently assumed charge, has said steps will be taken to address the problems under the applicable guidelines.
Those assurances, however, do not establish when the land-record issue will be resolved or when additional classrooms and teachers will be provided.
The district administration and School and Mass Education Department should publish a time-bound corrective plan.
The Questions That Need Answers
The Blink believes the administration should disclose the school’s land ownership and mutation records, the status of its proposed model-school transformation, the number of additional classrooms sanctioned and the action taken on teacher vacancies.
The government should also explain whether the institution has been assessed for compliance with applicable school-infrastructure standards.
The school management committee and parents deserve a clear timetable rather than another general assurance.
A school that has educated generations of children should not have to wait indefinitely for basic administrative recognition and adequate classrooms.
Odisha’s education policies frequently emphasise modernisation, digital learning and institutional transformation.
But Biswanathpur presents a more fundamental challenge.
Before a classroom can become smart, it must first exist.
Before a school can be transformed, the administration must resolve the records and infrastructure on which that transformation depends.
The school has survived for 134 years. The question is why its most basic problems have survived almost as long.
