CJP To Launch Tribal Schools Campaign In Gadchiroli

Mumbai: Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke on Wednesday announced the launch of the ‘Adivasi School Thik Karo’ campaign at Gadchiroli in Maharashtra from September 17. The campaign is to draw the government’s attention towards the issues, including discrimination faced by tribal students, he said.

“Schools in tribal regions across India have been neglected by all governments in the last 80 years. Therefore, we are starting the ‘Adivasi School Thik Karo’ campaign from Thursday in Gadchiroli. The CJP representatives will visit tribal schools and inspect the facilities and infrastructure,” Dipke said in Nagpur.

He also alleged that more than 590 tribal students had died in Maharashtra over the last two years. Several deaths were linked to incidents such as snakebites, he said before adding that families of deceased students did not always receive adequate compensation.

The activist also alleged that 477 of the 720 Eklavya Model Residential Schools were non-functional. “Where will these tribal students go for their studies?” he asked.

“The government will have to give priority to the tribal community which comprises a big chunk of the population. Tribal students only have a 22.8 percent enrolment rate in higher education and just 130 Scheduled Tribe (ST) applicants got admission in IITs. Just claiming a 7.8 GDP growth rate or talking about becoming a USD 5 trillion economy is not enough,” he said.

Dipke’s new initiative comes a month after CJP launched its nationwide ‘School Thik Karo’ campaign, which was aimed at improving the condition of rural and urban public schools.

Dipke earlier had led an agitation against the NEET-UG paper leak that saw youth from different parts of the country converge in Delhi to demand reforms and the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union Education Minister. The Dipke-led CJP protested in Delhi for 36 days and the agitation culminated in the resignation of Pradhan on July 25 this year.