HC suggests chief secretary to visit SC/ST hostels

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday issued an emergent notice to the Karnataka State Child Rights Protection Commission while hearing a matter regarding the poor condition of 2,000 hostels for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes students in the state.

A division bench of acting Chief Justice H G Ramesh and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar was hearing a PIL filed by Vinay Venugopal seeking directions for implementation of a suitable system to monitor the management of the hostels meant for SCs and STs.

According to the petitioner, the state government was earmarking funds to the tune of Rs 1,300 crore for the maintenance of these hostels under the Karnataka Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan (Planning, Allocation and Utilization of Financial Resources) Act, 2013. In spite of this huge allocation, the condition of the hostels is extremely poor.

The petitioner stated that there were cots without mattresses, poor hygiene and sanitation facilities and students were being served very poor quality of food in these hostels.

Justice H G Ramesh orally observed that the chief secretary should make surprise visits to these hostels to check their functioning and she will be shocked to see the true condition. He also appreciated the intention of the petition for public good.

According to the petitioner, the state government has been lackadaisical and careless with regard to monitoring of these hostels. This has resulted in the wastage of crores of rupees of the taxpayers' money.

The petitioner has sought directions for filling up the vacancies in these hostels.

He has also stated that the students should be provided proper infrastructure, nutritional food and good sanitary facilities. A notice was ordered to the state government and matter adjourned to
January 11.