The Bombay High Court has treated as a public interest ligitation (PIL), a letter written by tribal activist Kishore Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti, about the pathetic condition of tribal 'ashramshala' residency schools and issued a notice to the Maharashtra government to file an affidavit.
The court has also asked petitioner Kishore Tiwari to be present personally during the next hearing which has been fixed on September 14.
The petitioner had directly written to the court that despite the government of Maharashtra spending money on tribal schools, the facilities provided by school managements are in very bad condition.
Though a lot of purchases are made on paper to create requisite facilities, the ground reality is that tribal students are denied even basic needs like food, uniforms, blankets or even toilets for girl students, the petitioner's PIL had alleged.
The petitioner with a fact finding team had visited more than 29 such tribal schools in Vidarbha, run by private parties mainly MLAs and MPs, where they saw pitiable conditions of such schools.
The court was also informed of shocking incidents, such as sexual exploitation of tribal girls by school staff, deaths of children due to unavailability of medical treatment and supply of adulterated food grains to tribal schools. However, even after a court order, the government failed to take any action against the managements of these tribal schools, he alleged. "We will demand of scrapping these tribal schools in remote forest areas so that all students could be accommodated in hostels near talukas where they could be educated along with mainstream students. This will also save costs and be a result oriented solution, instead of tribal schools which have been earning politicians crores," he said.