PANEL FINDS ODISHA TRIBAL SCHOOL ‘UNTIDY AND UNHYGIENIC’

One of India’s largest schools for tribal children allegedly has undernourished and anaemic children living in rooms that are untidy, stinky and unhygienic, an inquiry report by a government body has found.

The Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in Bhubaneswar was established in 1993 and houses more than 25,000 tribal children. The institute has been praised by visiting dignitaries including Presidents, prime ministers and Union and state minister, with the media hailing founder Achyuta Samanta as a “poverty slayer”.

But an inquiry conducted by the child welfare committee of Khurda district last month said the children’s living spaces were too congested and rooms not cross-ventilated. The children are allegedly undernourished and anaemic, noted the report submitted to Khurda district collector earlier this month.

“There are no sufficient toilets available for huge number of children living in the hostel. Many of the bathrooms and toilets are left broken and need major repairing. As the sweeper comes once a week, the toilets are cleaned daily by the children,” said Benudhar Senapati, a member of the committee.

A spokesperson of the school asked HT to ignore the report. “We have not seen it. But please ignore it.”

The decision of India’s largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to shift its operations from Lucknow to Noida at a time when they are setting up new centres in other states is bound to cause embarrassment to the BJP leadership.

Uttar Pradesh has sent Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Lok Sabha while Lucknow is the parliamentary constituency of union home minister Rajnath Singh.

It will be a loss of face for Lucknow MP Rajnath Singh if he fails to hold back the centre in his constituency.

Moreover, the BJP government in UP is barely two months old when its premier IT firm, the only one to showcase to the investors, is ending its 33-yearold operations in Lucknow.

It was after much persuasion that former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had managed to convince Shiv Nadar to set up a training centre of HCL in Lucknow after his government decided to develop Lucknow as a major IT hub. HCL had pumped in Rs 1,500 crore to develop the IT city and Shiv Nadar managed to secure commitments from Ratan Tata during his visit to Lucknow in December 2015.

Yogi Adityanath had recently announced the new industrial policy offering sops to investors to set up units in backward regions of the state and it was at