Nuapada: Believe it or not, students of an Ashram School have to walk more than half a kilometre through a forested road every night to have their dinner, as food is not cooked in the hostel but on the school premises at Kamkeda village under Nuagaon panchayat of Komna block in Nuapada district.
The school owned by the state government and managed by the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste (ST & SC) Development Department is plagued by a host of problems.
The residential school has over 300 students on its rolls from Class I to Class VIII. All the students reside in the hostel established separately from the school at a distance of at least half a kilometre. The students have their midday meals in the school and leave for their hostel after class hours.
However, they have to risk their lives and pass through the forested area in pitch darkness every night to reach their school for dinner. After finishing dinner, they again cover the same distance to reach their hostel which is located close to Chandel hill.
Locals said the hill is inhabited by wild animals including leopards, bears and poisonous reptiles, and there is every possibility that they might stray near the hostel and endanger the students’ lives. Walking on the forested road at night is an open invitation to danger, the locals said.
Rules mandate that both lunch and dinner should be prepared in the respective hostels. However, the authorities cook the food on the school premises instead of in hostels. Furthermore, instead of transporting the food to the hostel, they make the students walk to the school for dinner.
Meanwhile, incessant rainfall triggered by low pressure has been lashing the area for the past few days. However, in the absence of any alternative, the students walk to their school in the rain and pitch darkness for dinner.
Guardians alleged that the teachers and concerned education officials are playing with the students’ lives and pushing them into grave danger. They said that the authorities are bound by rules to cook the midday meal at school and the dinner on the hostel premises at night. However, the concerned officials have thrown the norms to wind, they alleged. Parents further alleged that the hostel authorities are yet to give essentials like toothbrushes, and toothpaste to the hostel inmates while oil, soaps and detergent powder are not given to them at regular intervals.
As per rule, they need to deliver the essentials to the students every week but students have to wait for one or two months to get the supplies. Moreover, the students are not served food as per the menu but are given rice, dal, dalma and curry prepared with potato and soybean chunks.
Earlier, District Welfare Officer Deeptimanta Bhoi had assured to resolve the problems within a week. Since then a month has passed but the problems remain unresolved, they alleged.
When contacted, Welfare Extension Officer Shyamsundar Majhi of Komna block acknowledged the problem. The school and hostels are separate and hostels are surrounded by private lands making it difficult to dump the wastes, he said, adding that they are arranging two trolleys which will ferry the dinner to the hostel inmates at night. Moreover, dustbins are also being arranged for dumping of garbage and disposing the soiled plates of students, he added.
PNN