Shocking report from SC-ST Hostel- Discriminating the needy to woo Minority

Reports about the awful condition of  a Government Hostel for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled tribe revealed the double standards of Government once again. When both central and state government are competing themselves to win the heart of Muslims by providing them with huge financial grants, Scholarships, grants, hostels etc those who really need the care and support of Government machinery is being completely neglected.

 

Shocking reports about Government’s pre-metric hostel at Amritakulam, Kolayathode, Kollam for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes where 54 children were living in hell-like conditions before which the nauseating prison holes of French Guyana described by Henri Charriere in his book Papillon would look like heaven.

 

Fifteen students under ten years of age are living in this hell-hole, moving around by dragging their bodies filled with aggravated boils filled with worms.

These children eat, sleep and study in a room which does not have the bare minimum facilities for human life. These children had contracted chicken pox some weeks ago, and the pox boils had aggravated to their present condition, contaminated by infections from the disgusting surroundings in the hostel.

These children had not got medical care from the authorities at any stage of their physical plight and mental torture. As the parents of all these children are daily wage-earners with no other means of income. The Minister ordered the probe after a television channel brought the story of this cruelty against the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe under a Government which boasts to spend hundreds of crores of rupees every year for the welfare of SC-ST.

The authorities have packed 54 students of Classes 1 to 5 in the hostel whose maximum capacity is to hold 30 children. Despite the fact that the Government has engaged warden and other staff for the hostel, the students never see anybody around. There are only two toilets for the entire 54 children. Both these toilets are now lying broken and this is forcing the students, incapacitated by the diseases to move around, to carry out their primary needs in the rooms where they live.

The only two bathrooms in the hostel also are in wasted condition, which has made it a source of contagious diseases. Due to lack of unblocked drains, waste water is lying still in pools in the bathrooms, spreading dangerous bacteria and viruses. Contagious diseases like viral fever are not news here.

The children say that the hostel has had no supply of drinking water for the past many days, forcing them to drink non-potable water, complicating their health conditions. Water for even the primary needs is being brought from the girl’s hostel which is adjacent to this hole, but most often they do not get sufficient volume of water.

There is a warden and two cooks to look after the needs of the children. However, the students complain that they never get freshly cooked food. Most often the food would be stale by several days. The 15 students, ravaged by the diseases are living in a single room, which has not been cleaned for the past many months. They also say that they never get to even see the warden for days together.

The children said that nobody had been enquiring about their health. The adjacent hostel is occupied by students above Class 5, and the only help these ill-fated students get is from them when they are in terrible need.

Sources in the SC-ST Welfare Department in Thiruvananthapuram said the Kollam hostel was perhaps not the only one where the conditions were so pathetic. Considering the complaints they had been receiving, most pre-metric hostels in the State were in hell-like situation, they said.

It was a tragedy that that the poor children were living in such situations when the Government continued to claim to look after them spending hundreds of crores of rupees every year.

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