Coimbatore: Activists and NGOs had appreciated the Coimbatore Forest department for making their department vehicle into a school van to help 59 tribal students to reach school at time and to continue their further education.
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A forest official said, the initiative was taken during the period of former Coimbatore DFO Thirunavukarasu on trial basis, by picking and dropping the tribal children to school from tribal villages inside the core forest of Poluvampatty range close to Western Ghats and the service was discontinued after they received official obstacles from Chennai.
Later on the many students discontinued their studies considering the floods in forest rivers during monsoon season and wild animal attack, after the continues efforts made by a vernacular journalist, the forest department again started the trip recently with the approval of present DFO Venkatesh also decided to convert the department vehicle as school bus for tribal children.
Around 59 students from 8 tribal settlements including Peratti, Vellappathy, Singappathy, Pettapathy, Sadivayalpathy, Kalkuthipathy and the foothills of Siruvani has to walk 8 KMs all way to reach the elementary school near Sadivayal first bridge and further for high school and higher secondary in Mathuvarayapuram and Irruttupalam.
The poluvampatty range has given its eco-tourism vehicle to pick and drop the tribal students from their houses to three different schools and drop them back home in the evening which comes around 33 KMs.
C.Palani Raja the range officer told the DC, the fuel cost for the vehicle is used from the eco-tourism fund. Normally the vehicle is used to pick tourists from Sadivayal camp and drop at Kovai-kutralam the trip starts by 10 am and remains till 3 pm on daily basis, before it could start its morning trip the driver will drop the students at the schools and will be back to report for the duty at time.
Similarly after the eco-tourism trip gets over by 3 pm the driver will reach the schools to pick the students and drop them at their houses. Mostly the Kovai-kutralam will be crowded during weekends and luckily the schools remains closed on weekends added the official.
