A private school has refused to return the property of Tribhuvan University (TU) which the former has been using for a long time free of cost. Laboratory Higher Secondary School of Kirtipur has been occupying academic blocks owned by TU and running classes.
The blocks were built with grants from US Embassy for running classes for university students of education faculty in 1977. All four blocks built on 104 ropanis of land is being used by the school since 2000 when Amod Prasad Upadhya, who was minister of education, took the decision to handover the premises to a Trust named Nepal Educational Society.
The school is running under Nepal Educational Society. The school charges fees higher than many private schools. Umesh Shrestha, executive director of Nepal Educational Society, established the school under this trust. He said he has utilized the physical structure which had remained useless.
Executive Board of TU recently decided to retrieve the property used by the school and conducted a meeting with the school management. At the meeting, the school refused to hastily hand over the facilities without getting its costs expended in additional facility built for running the school.
“We have decided to get our property back which was registered for the university in 1993,” said Prof Dr Prakash Shrestha, Dean of TU´s Education Faculty. “We have held several meetings with the school,” he said adding, “The school will come under the university´s management soon”.
Meanwhile, Umesh Shrestha said that the school management held a meeting just once with the TU Education Faculty, and needs more meetings to reach a settlement. “We have tabled our proposal at the meeting,” he further said. “The school has invested for additional facility which should be paid back by university before handover”.
However, dean of TU´s Education Faculty said, “The university cannot pay because the school has been using the facilities free of cost for a long time. Instead, the school should pay compensation for using the university´s property,” Dr Shrestha said. “If not, the university will resort to legal measures.”
(Source: Republica Nepal)
