Tribal activists raise concerns over student deaths in Paderu region of Andhra Pradesh

Tribal activists allege negligence in monitoring leading to student deaths and health issues in Paderu residential school hostels.

Activists from the tribal organisations allege increase in deaths and health issues among the students in residential school hostels in the Agency area of Alluri Sitharama Raju district, due to lack of proper monitoring and negligence by the authorities.

Though the health issues among the students in tribal region was not new, the issue once again came to light after six to 10 students from a residential school from Koyyuru were hospitalised due to some health issues recently.

According to the tribal organisations, in this academic year, more than 12 students died due to various health issues and a number of students are suffering from various health ailments. They allege that various issues like poor sanitation, unsafe drinking water, lack of healthcare from the department and monitoring from the hostel wardens are some of the reasons for the student deaths.

P. Narasayya from A.P. Girijan Sangham, alleged that the tribal welfare hostels lack basic amenities. “The wardens, principals, or heads of the department do not respond in time whenever a student falls sick,” he alleged.

“Earlier, there were health assistants in the school hostels. Their duty was to keep a check on the students’ health and initiate action if students get ill. But since the last three years, the health assistant recruitments was stopped,” he added.

According to a few activists, student deaths were reported from various government school hostels in G Madugula, Paderu, Koyyuru, Munchingputtu, Pedabayalu, Dumbriguda and a few other mandals in the last one year. Recently, the banned CPI (Maoists) have also demanded action against those officials responsible for the student deaths.