RAIPUR: More than 45 girls on Monday walked for hours to meet the district collector in Chhattisgarh taking their complaint that the school hostel facilities are in deplorable conditions including no electricity for months and unhygienic food and mess.
Yielding no replies from the school principal and the Tribal Welfare Department, the students of Eklavya Model Residential School in Shivpur, Batouli decided to march 30 kilometres on foot to the district headquarters in Ambikapur.
The students alleged that their hostel has been plunged into darkness without electricity for the past three months. Moreover, apart from the poor food quality and unhygienic mess, they said, the school had an acute shortage of teachers because of which regular physics and chemistry classes have been severely disrupted.
As the sudden protest triggered panic across the local administration, Assistant Commissioner of the Tribal Welfare Department, Lalit Shukla, intercepted them at Bailkota, by when the girls had covered nearly six km on foot.
Shukla tried to dissuade them, offering assurances. However, the determined students refused to negotiate and insisted on meeting Collector Ajit Vasant in person.
Authorities then arranged special buses to ferry them the remaining distance to the collectorate.
The collector interacted with the students and assured them that immediate rectifications would follow. He directed officials to resolve the power failure without delay, ensure strict cleanliness in the hostel mess, and deploy guest teachers to cover the vacant teaching posts.
Vasant formed a three-member inquiry panel comprising Joint Collector Sharda Agrawal, Sitapur SDM Fagesh Sinha, and Assistant Director Kiran Rajput to investigate the lapses and submit a detailed report.
Nodal officers across all ashram hostels in the district have also been ordered to conduct physical inspections within a week.
This is the third time in this year's academic session that tribal students walked to the collector's office raising the hostel issue.
After Vasant's assurances, the students were sent back to their hostel by bus.
Due to intense fatigue, dehydration, and stress, one of the students had fainted and collapsed inside the collectorate premises. She was immediately rushed via ambulance to the Medical College Hospital for treatment.
