This story is from April 29, 2019

Development mocks at 8 government residential schools atop Kaimur hills

Development mocks at 8 government residential schools atop Kaimur hills
Representative image
SASARAM: Over 2,500 Scheduled Tribe (ST) students enrolled in the eight government boys’ residential schools in the Kaimur hills spread over the twin districts of Rohtas and Kaimur have neither proper toilets nor adequate water facilities.
The students have to rush to the adjacent forests to answer the call of nature. Ironically, Rohtas and Kaimur have been declared ODF (open defecation free) districts under the Union government’s ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission last year.
All these schools, established on June 6, 1956, fall under the Sasaram parliamentary constituency which has sent seasoned leaders like Jagjivan Ram and his daughter Meira Kumar to Parliament.
Old-timers say the nearly one lakh population, mostly STs, in the 128 villages situated atop the hills have been facing acute water crisis for decades. Sixteen of these villages fall in Rohtas and the rest 112 in Kaimur district. The water crisis never became an election issue for any political party or candidate apparently because only 1 to 2% of the 50,000 votes of these villages are cast in successive elections.
Rampreet Oraon, deputy mukhiya of Pipadih panchayat situated atop the hills, attributed the poor voter turnout to the fact that the polling booths for them are created in the plains as a precautionary measure against Maoist violence as the hills have been infamous as the hideout of ultra-left extremists. “It takes two to three days to travel to the booths and back on foot if one wishes to exercise his franchise. With the village adults mostly being poor daily wagers, casting a vote means losing wages for two-three days,” Oraon told this newspaper on Sunday.
According to Oraon, humans and animals share whatever the scarce water resources are in the villages atop the hills. “Our women are turning bald as they have to fetch water for cooking purposes on their heads from up to 10km from the village,” he said.
Mahendra Singh, a Class X student of ST Residential School at Soli village, said his school did have two toilets, but no water tap. “The water from the only hand-pump on the campus is used for cooking and washing utensils. We, therefore, don’t use it in the toilet and, instead, prefer to go inside the forests to relieve and wash ourselves in any water body nearby,” the teenager said and added that the boarders do take bath at the hand-pump but only twice a week.

Another student, Jay Prakash, said the students cover a distance of 3-4km for bowel movement. “But the water in the jungle pond is polluted. We develop skin diseases,” he said.
According to the students, severe water crisis even forces the schools to declare unofficial holiday at times. Raj Dev Pal, the headmaster of the Residential Middle School at Athan village, said his school did not have a boundary wall and, as such, the boarders lived under constant fear of jackals often trespassing into the premises.
Power availability is also a problem for these schools. “There’s no electricity supply. We get electricity from our solar panels but only for two to three hours. The ODF tag for the district notwithstanding, the fact is that toilets are under construction in our school,” said Ravindra Kumar, headmaster of the Middle School at Koluha.
Needless to say, cellphone connectivity is a luxury. “I mostly use my mobile phone when I visit the block HQ. In villages, we have to climb atop a tree for connectivity,” said Manoj Kumar, an alumnus of the Soli High School, who did his BED but works as a sweeper in the same school.
District welfare officer Sanjay Kumar nodded. “The calls reach the mobile phones in these villages, but get disconnected instantly after a ring. We manage to talk after the school functionaries come to the network coverage area on seeing missed call,” the officer said.
Though district education officials could not be contacted due to their poll-related preoccupations, official sources recalled that at the then Shahabad range DIG A K Ambedkar’s directive in 2008, police had identified 60 villages of nine panchayats atop the hills in the Maoist-hit Nauhatta block, which lacked drinking water and where villagers quenched their thirst with “natural resources”. Other 50-odd villages were found to be facing acute shortage of drinking water as their wells had dried up.
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