Soon, 23 hostels in Vidarbha for tribal students

Nagpur: The Maharashtra government will soon build 23 hostels for tribal students in Vidarbha region this year, officials said today.The necessary land for the project has already been acquired and remaining formalities are being actively completed and the construction work would begin soon.Fourteen plots of land including five in Deori (Bhandara) and nine in Nagpur city have been acquired in May, with active cooperation from Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), Additional Commissiner of Tribal Development, Dr Pallavi Darade said.[caption id="attachment_372988" align="alignleft" width="380"] Reuters[/caption]Presently, there are about 7,800 hostels accomodating 29,000 students of government-run Ashram Shalas (boarding schools) and another 38,000 from government-aided schools in six districts of Vidarbha, she told PTI.Darade said after land acquisition for 23 hostels, the department is hopeful to go into further acquisition to set up 33 such hostels during the current financial year.She said the department has undertaken "micro planning" for betterment of overall well being of tribal children, especially girls."There are periodical health check ups of girls once they are admitted to schools, while another round of check-up is carried out under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)," Darade said.The officer said that in the wake of instances of alleged sexual exploitation of girls at some hostels, the department has held a workshop to sensitise the concenred officials, and the respective project officers are ordered todeal with it strictly.PTI