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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Panel chief finds lapses in hostels

Staff Reporter

Takes serious view of official ‘apathy’

Committee members visit three hostels in Kakinada
Officials come under criticism

Kakinada: K. Ravi Babu, Chairman of A.P. Legislative Committee on Scheduled Tribes, has regretted that the tribal people are living in a pathetic state even after the achievement of independence six decades ago. Lack of education has been their bane with a literacy rate of just 36 per cent and they still languish in poverty devoid of the basic amenities in spite of massive allocations in the budget.

Serious problem

A glaring example of this sorry state of affairs is the filthy conditions prevalent in tribal welfare hostels. The problem is so serious that for about 18,000 tribal students in the district, there are only 90 hostels, which implied that each one of the hostels has a student strength of at least 200.

A single room is supposed to be fit for living by four of five but 40 to 50 students are crammed in it and to compound their woes, the rooms lack proper lighting and fans, not to mention the toilets. The plight of girls is unimaginable. But, the officials appeared to be merely drawing salaries after taking superficial action, observes Mr. Ravi Babu.

Addressing the committee meeting at Zilla Parishad conference hall here on Saturday, Mr. Ravi Babu said he visited three tribal hostels in Kakinada where the students brought to his notice the poor quality of food served to them and how their appeals for better facilities went unheeded. The situation was so bad that a boy was getting his hair cut by a senior student since a long time as the monthly hair cutting allowance of Rs. 12 was never paid to him.

The same was the case with other boys residing in the hostels. The girls were bearing the brunt of torrid conditions prevalent in the toilets which were far less than the stipulated number per hostel. There were umpteen other problems which were noticed but not acted upon by the officials of the Tribal Welfare Department, he said.

Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi, was therefore ordered to identify lands in Kakinada and Rajahmundry for construction of hostels for tribal students of both the college and school levels, for which the committee would make a recommendation to the State government. The committee has also taken a serious note of the failure of the officials to implement the rule of reservation for those belonging to the Scheduled Tribes. Mr. Ravi Babu said the committee would not permit the recruitment of non-tribal people for various jobs in the scheduled areas whatever be the administrative grounds cited by the officials as the government had given clear instructions that the rights of tribal people, whether in jobs, education or other areas, should not be infringed for reasons whatsoever.

Earlier, the committee chairman vent his anger at the officials for their failure to furnish minimum data sought by him, like the number of tribal students studying in the district and the number of jobs for which tribal candidates were recruited according to the norms.

He regretted that the committee’s last meeting held on July 26,2007 had no recorded minutes which would have brought to light what were the topics discussed then and the action taken on issues that cropped up.

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