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CJP launches Adivasi School Thik Karo drive in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli
Abhijeet Dipke announced the Adivasi School Thik Karo campaign in Gadchiroli, alleging decades of neglect in tribal schools. The drive seeks to spotlight poor infrastructure, student deaths and unequal access to education in tribal belts.
Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Wednesday alleged that tribal schools across India had faced government apathy for the past 80 years and announced the launch of the party's 'Adivasi School Thik Karo' campaign in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district from September 17.
Addressing a press conference, Dipke said the campaign would focus on problems and discrimination faced by tribal students. It will build on CJP's nationwide 'School Thik Karo' drive, launched a month ago to improve rural and urban public schools.
Under the new campaign, CJP representatives will visit tribal schools and inspect their facilities and infrastructure.
"Schools in tribal regions across India have been neglected by all governments in the last 80 years. Therefore, we are starting the 'Adivasi School Thik Karo' campaign from Thursday in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra," Dipke said.
"Almost all governments have ignored tribal students... Political parties build their party headquarters in every district by spending crores of rupees, but they don't have funds to give to tribal residential schools that are mostly operated from rented properties," he added.
Dipke called for greater focus on students and schools in tribal belts, saying they had a lot of potential.
"The government will have to prioritise the tribal community as it has a very big population. Just claiming a 7.8 GDP growth rate or talking about becoming a USD 5 trillion economy is not enough," he said.
"We request all the government to focus on tribal schools and tribal students and students from the rural areas across the country, because these tribal and rural students also are the future of the country just like students from big cities and private schools," Dipke added.
OVER 590 TRIBAL STUDENT DEATHS CLAIMED IN MAHARASHTRA
According to Dipke, more than 590 tribal students died in Maharashtra over the last two years.
"Many tribal students die of snakebites. But these deaths fail to elicit any response from the government. Had these deaths occurred in Pune or Mumbai, it would created a furore across the country," he said.
Dipke also claimed that more than 30 tribal students died in Balaghat, a tribal belt in Madhya Pradesh, in the last two months.
He said deaths of tribal students had also taken place in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Dipke alleged that families of deceased tribal students did not receive honourable compensation.
He claimed that families in Rajasthan were given goats, while those in Madhya Pradesh were given Rs 4 lakh.
He also raised concerns over Eklavya Modern residential schools, alleging that 477 of the 720 such schools were non-functional.
"Where will these tribal students go to study?" he asked.
Dipke said tribal students had only a 22.8 per cent enrolment rate in higher education and added that only 130 Scheduled Tribe applicants got admission to IITs.
"Why is the number of admissions and faculty in IITs so low? This is nothing else but outright discrimination," he alleged.
DIPKE TEARS UP AGREEMENT OVER TRIBAL HOSTELS
Later, during an interaction with tribal students in Nagpur, Dipke was informed about a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Maharashtra Tribal Development Department and the Late Lakshman Mankar Trust in connection with tribal hostels.
Supporting the demand for cancellation of the agreement, Dipke tore up a copy of the agreement in a symbolic act of opposition.
The tribal rights group Adivasi Adhikar Bachhav Kriti Samiti had earlier this month alleged that the Maharashtra government had handed over operations of nearly 490 tribal hostels to a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-linked trust.
A senior official from the Tribal Development Department had termed the allegations "totally baseless", stressing that no such handover of the hostels can take place.
The agreement had been signed with the trust a year ago for facilitating personality development of students, the official had said.
Later in the day, Dipke was scheduled to interact with tribal students in Nagpur.
Overall, Dipke said the campaign would seek to highlight poor infrastructure, student deaths, compensation issues and access to education in tribal areas.
(With inputs from PTI)
