Land will be immediately made available to all nomadic tribes of the district including the Malapandarams, Minister for the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes K. Radhakrishnan has said.
He was inaugurating a new building of the pre-matric hostel for girls at Achencoil in Aryankavu grama panchayat here on Wednesday. “The department will directly provide houses to the nomadic tribes and accredited engineers will be assigned the job,” he said. The Minister added that the empowerment of Scheduled Tribes can only be achieved through better education and not mere distribution of benefits.
“Three post-matric hostels will be started this year to help students pursue higher education. Distribution of the grant will be completed by 15th of this month. A sum of ₹6 crore has been allocated for this purpose while ₹136 crore will be used to disburse the arrears,” he said. The hostel built by the Kerala State Construction Corporation spending ₹3.7 crore can accommodate 100 students. The building also has a recreation room, kitchen, staff room, work area, dining hall, visiting room, dormitory, reading room, and study room.
P.S. Supal, MLA, presided over the function while N.K. Premachandran, MP, Director of the Scheduled Tribes Development Department D.R. Meghasree, block panchayat president Radha Rajendran, grama panchayat president Suja Thomas, people’s representatives, and officials were present on the occasion.
