By Express News Service

PATNA: For the 460 students at a residential school on the outskirts of Patna, the Republic Day celebrations this year came with exhilarating news.

The students, who come from Bihar’s dirt-poor Dalit Musahar community, were overjoyed to learn that this unique school’s founder-chairman, Jyotinivas Kumar Sinha, has been conferred with the Padma Shri award.

The Shoshit Samadhan Kendra (SSK), the school Sinha founded in 2005, has been providing totally free, English-medium education for the poorest of the poor. As the students kept surrounding him to wish him and his mobile phone went on ringing, the 73-year-old continued smiling and saying ‘Thank you’.

“I am happy that my work has been recognised. This honor reminds me of the huge work of improving the education system for the needy that lies before us,” said Sinha, a Bihar-cadre IPS officer of the 1967 batch who retired as the special secretary of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in 2005.

Soon after retirement, he sold his flat in Delhi and returned to Patna as he wanted to “make some solid, meaningful contribution” to society.