Patna: A school in Jharkhand has got a power connection, 69 years after its establishment. This happened only after Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally intervened and asked the state’s officials to provide power connection to this high school, authorities said.

The school, located at Haidarnagar block town under Husainabad subdivision in Palamu district, was a picture of complete neglect until last month.

Besides lacking basic facilities, the school didn’t have even a power connection. According to reports, the teachers wrote many times to the authorities, but nothing happened.

Early this year, two of the school’s students ­— Manoj Kumar and Amod Kumar — wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, explaining the problems they face at school due to lack of electricity.

Their joy knew no bounds when the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) took immediate action and asked the Patna district officials for the lack of power facility provisions to the school for the past seven decades, in a letter sent in February.

This was followed by another PMO letter in March 24, instructing the deputy commissioner and other district officials to provide a power connection to the school. Eventually, the school got power supply by the end of July, bringing joy to the teachers and students.

“We are very happy now. Our school has finally got power and the computers are working now,” said Amod, one of the two students who shot off the letter to the PMO.

According to him, they got the idea to write to the PM after listening to his <Mann Ki Baat> programme, in which Modi asked the public to bring their problems to his notice for an immediate solution.

The school principal said he cannot believe his school is finally connected. “We tried hard to get a power connection both at the departmental and political level, but never succeeded in our attempts,” Baijnath Ram, the school principal, told the media on Friday.

As per an official report, around 30,000 villages in Jharkhand still don’t have power facilities, but Chief Minister Raghubar Das has promised to connect all the villages by December 2018. “Only 3.8 million households out of 6.8 million in the state could get electricity connections in 67 years. By December 2018, the target is to provide electricity to the rest,” the chief minister announced.

He claimed Jharkhand would be made an electricity hub by 2022.