Chhattisgarh govt to open 33 schools from next session in maoist heartland

With his blurred vision, Manish Poyam, now 82 years old, keenly watches his granddaughter as she packs her school bag, neatly arranging books and a rickety pencil box, in Chhattisgarh’s restive Bijapur district.

Poyam has never seen a school bag before. Although he has seen and heard about schools that were knocked down even before they could come alive to the tolling of bells and to the shrieks of children.

He is elated and curious. So is his five-year-old granddaughter as she fiddled with the fancy, small bag.

Poyam is not the only one.

Scores of people in Dumripalnar village under Burji gram panchayat of Bijapur are jubilant as a school is finally opening next week.

 

Dumripalnar, about 45-km from the district headquarters of Bijapur, is among the 33 places identified in the once Maoist-heartland where the authorities will start schools from the coming academic session.

According to a senior official in the district education department, children from these villages were being imparted education by keeping them in porta cabins, residential schools, girls’ education complex, Kasturba Gandhi Girls School, Chief Minister Public School, Residential School, Prayas Residential School and Eklavya Residential School Ashrams located in the development block and district headquarters.

They were forced to stay away from their parents, and visited them only during the vacation and never carried bags or books.

For the village elders, school accessories remained a subject of curiosity. For the first time, they will see children in school uniforms with bags on their shoulders.

Besides Bijapur, seven new schools will be opened in Dantewada and another five in Sukma. Both the districts were once synonymous with deadly Maoist violence.

Opening schools in these villages is being seen as another big leap by the government in the on-going operations against left-wing extremism.

“For the first time, school bags will outweigh the barrel of guns in these villages,” Bijapur Collector Anurag Pandey said.

The lack of education infrastructure has forced over 7,000 children to dropout, Pandey said, adding that a special campaign in local Gondi language ‘School Vende Varrat Pandum’, that means return to school campaign has been launched.

The District Collector has personally written letters to the parents urging them to send their children to school.

The initiative is part of the ‘Niyad Nellanar’ scheme launched by the Vishnu Deo Sai government in Chhattisgarh.

‘Niyad Nellanar’, coined in local dialect, means “your good village”. This scheme ensures that basic amenities and benefits of social-welfare projects reach the villages that remained cut off following Maoists activities.

The villagers are so excited that they have come out voluntarily repairing and renovating the rooms for the school.