Under a project named ‘Nua Mana Nua Sapana (new thoughts, new dreams), the Rayagada district police have selected 350 tribal students from Maoist-affected areas of the district for their better education in a premier institution in Bhubaneswar.
According to Rayagada Superintendent of Police Rajesh Pandit, all the selected students along with their parents left for Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS) in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday night. All of them would get admitted into KISS. The Rayagada district police arranged a dozen buses for the purpose of transportation of the tribal children and their parents to Bhubaneswar. Rayagada District Collector Sashi Bhusan Padhi flagged off the buses.
All the selected children were in the age group of 6-10 years. More than fifty per cent of them were girls. “These children will be provided free education, boarding along with vocational training from class I to post-graduate level. It will ensure creation of educated, economically independent and socially concerned peer leaders in every tribal pocket of Rayagada district,” said Mr. Pandit. There was extra stress on selecting girls as educated girls become major catalysts in transforming society, Mr. Pandit added.
The programme envisioned to counter Maoist propaganda among tribal youth and their parents in remote areas. It was hoped that through better education, the exploitation of tribal children Maoists and other vested interest elements of the society could get eliminated.
Great supportTill now the Rayagada district police have been instrumental in ensuring high quality education of more than 1300 tribal students from economically backward families of extreme remote pockets under the ‘Nua Mana Nua Sapana’ project. The project was started in the Maoist-affected district in 2011-12.
The KISS had also been a great support for the project as all of them had got admitted into the residential campus of the institution.
The Rayagada district police was instrumental in selecting and enrolling 319 bright tribal students in the academic year 2010-11. In the next academic year 376 students had got selected under the project. In 2012-13 academic year 280 students were selected by Rayagada district police under the project.
