Abhijeet Dipke announces ‘Adivasi School Thik Karo’ campaign

Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke announced the launch of the 'Adivasi School Thik Karo' campaign in Gadchiroli on September 17, alleging government apathy towards tribal schools. He also raised concerns over student deaths and Eklavya residential schools

Nagpur: Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke on Wednesday alleged that tribal schools in India have faced government apathy over the last 80 years and announced the launch of his group’s ‘Adivasi School Thik Karo’ campaign in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra from September 17.

Addressing a press conference here, Dipke said the campaign aims to draw the government’s attention to the problems and discrimination faced by tribal students.

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A month ago, the CJP launched the ‘School Thik Karo’ (Fix the Schools), a nationwide campaign aimed at improving the condition of rural and urban public schools.

Dipke 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 district of Maharashtra.”

As part of the exercise, CJP representatives will visit tribal schools and inspect their facilities and infrastructure, he said.

“Almost all governments have ignored tribal students… Political parties build their party headquarters in every district by spending crores of rupees, but they don’t have funds to give to tribal residential schools that are mostly operated from rented properties,” the CJP convenor said.

Dipke called for a focus on students and schools in tribal belts, saying they have a lot of potential.

“The government will have to prioritise the tribal community as it has a very big population. Just claiming a 7.8 per cent GDP growth rate or talking about becoming a USD 5 trillion economy is not enough,” he said.

“We request all the governments to focus on tribal schools and tribal students and students from rural areas across the country, because these tribal and rural students are also the future of the country, just like students from big cities and private schools,” he said.

According to Dipke, more than 590 tribal students died in Maharashtra in the last two years.

“Many tribal students die of snakebites. But these deaths fail to elicit any response from the government. Had these deaths occurred in Pune or Mumbai, it would have created a furore across the country,” he said.

More than 30 tribal students died in Balaghat, a tribal belt in Madhya Pradesh, in the last two months. Deaths of tribal students also took place in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand, he said.

The families of deceased tribal students do not even get adequate compensation, according to him.

In Rajasthan, the families of deceased tribal students were given goats, while in Madhya Pradesh, Rs 4 lakh was given, he claimed.

Dipke also raised concerns over Eklavya Modern residential schools and alleged that 477 of the 720 schools are non-functional.

“Where will these tribal students go to study?” he asked.

Tribal students have only a 22.8 per cent enrolment rate in higher education, he said, adding that just 130 Scheduled Tribe (ST) applicants got admission to IITs.

“Why is the number of admissions and faculty in IITs so low? This is nothing else but outright discrimination,” he alleged.

Later in the day, Dipke is scheduled to interact with tribal students in Nagpur.