Thiruvananthapuram: RIGHTS, an organisation working in the field of educational needs of the marginalised, has said many students from marginalised communities have opted not to stay in pre-metric hostels as they lacked basis facilities.
Reacting to the CAG report pointing to the inadequacies in hostels, RIGHTS executive director V.B. Ajayakumar has said the hostels had helped the educational advancements of students from the scheduled caste communities during their initial stages.
"However, the same is not the case now," he said. "No parent now identifies the hostels as an institution for the Dalits. This is one of the reasons for fall in number of students being admitted to such hostels."
The CAG report had found serious lapses in fund-spending in post metric hostels run for Schedules Caste students. A test check in 10 hostels found that wardens did not stay in the hostels at night which was against the directions issued by the Scheduled Caste Development Department in August 1997.
The CAG report said while the government has stipulated that no outsider shall be allowed into the women hostel premises, the hostels were being used for various activities like conduct of meetings with outsiders as participants which impinged on the safety and security of the hostel.
As per the government guidelines, inmates of pre-metric hostels should be provided with cots, table, chairs, cupboard and mattress but it was found that the students did not get these essential items. Instead, the inmates were forced to share cots or were made to sleep on the floor.
The report also said inmates in six out of 41 hostels were running in rented buildings. Of them, three were old and dilapidated and were not suitable for the functioning a hostels.
The pre-metric hostel for boys at Taliparamba in Kannur district which was functioning in a rented building was closed down in May 2015 due to the dilapidated condition of the building and the boarders were transferred to a hostel at Pazhayangadi in Kannur district, the CAG report said.
