Jamshedpur: Sukra Ho, 20, comes from remote Lenjoboro village in East Singhbhum's Mosabani block to study English honours at Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial College in Karandih near Jamshedpur, but Shakespeare and Keats in his syllabus have nothing in common with his life at Adivasi Welfare Hostel where he is warding off snakes every hour.
Nearly 250 tribal youths stay at the hostel with 59 rooms in two buildings, both marked by seeping roofs, poor water supply, unusable toilets and no mess facility.
Worst, students do not know whom to approach for a solution, since both district welfare department and LBSM College management pass the maintenance buck to each other.
Their plight is similar to those living in some of the other tribal hostels of Jharkhand, which, according to a survey conducted by Centre for Adivasi Research and Development (CARD), were the "worst" among the 32 hostels inspected in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The Telegraph reported the findings of the survey on August 22, highlighting the particularly wretched state of one at Mandar block of Ranchi. The Adivasi hostel in Karandih, although not part of the survey, wasn't far behind in the show of horrors.
"There are no mosquito nets and snakes enter rooms or bathrooms from cracked doors and windows. We always make a noise while entering a room," Sukra, a second-year English honours student, said. The cots with stands improvised by local welders to hang the missing nets look uncannily like hospital beds.
Hostel mate Budhrai Murmu, an intermediate pure science student who comes from Rajnagar in Seraikela-Kharsawan, said the seepage scared him. "In some parts, the roof can fall off any moment."
Another hostel mate Santosh Sardar, a political science honours student from Ashtha Kowali in Ghurabandha, added they did not have a cook or food supplies since the last three years. "We are forced to collect funds from students and buy rice, vegetables and other edibles and hire a cook from our own pockets," said the son of a casual labourer.
"Each boarder pays Rs 300 for food, including Rs 5,000 a month to the cook. We also have to pay sweepers to arrange cleaning toilets. If we don't have enough money, we do it ourselves," he added.
Budhrai said they did not have enough water for basics, making cleaning washrooms a luxury in any case. "Three tubewells are defunct since four months. The only succour is the deep boring well, but when there is a power cut, which is often, it does not work," he said.
East Singhbhum DDC Biswanath Maheshwari, also the district welfare officer, said his department was in charge of the tribal hostels till last year. "But a new rule was framed last year after which all tribal welfare hostels on campus were handed over to the respective colleges for maintenance. I will probe why this college is not maintaining the hostel properly," he said.
East Singhbhum DC Amit Kumar said while respective colleges looked after four adivasi welfare hostels on campuses in his district, the government maintained adivasi boys hostels at Potka, Patamda, Chakulia and Ghatshila.
LBSM College principal Amar Singh said he did not know about any new rule. "It is called Adivasi Welfare Hostel. So maintenance has to be done by the welfare department. We were only supposed to appoint a hostel superintendent, which we did," Singh said.
