S Henlly Phom
Mon, March 9
Eastern Naga Students Federation (ENSF) ‘Wheel Tour 2014’ to four districts of Eastern Nagaland which kick started from Longleng district on March 6 is at its second leg of tour in Mon district.
The ‘Wheel Tour’ in Mon district took off from Wakching village today with participation of 15 villages under Wakching area.
With the main objective of creating awareness on various available schemes among the people and to educate young minds and most importantly to let people identify their rights and face the world to acquire their rights, the ENSF officials are reaching out to the people of the 20 constituencies in Eastern Nagaland through their advocacy tour.
During interaction with the villagers from the 15 villages of Wakching area, it came to light that majority of the folks are unaware of the schemes available, and therefore are not able to the derive benefits from them.
At an awareness programme held for villages on various state/centrally sponsored schemes, the village folks were enlightened to take cognizance of the schemes they are not informed about or misled. Expressing their grievances, the villagers lamented that the ‘no fail policy’ and ‘no fee collection policy’ under Right to Education Act have become a burden for the teachers who have to manage cost of papers for rapid assessment. They also said abnormal rise in private tuition fees has come in the way of the poor children acquiring good and proper education.
During the discussion, they disclosed that the uniforms and text books meant for children for present academic year are provided only in the next academic session. Students’ enrolment in the next academic session does not tally with the previous year’s provision, creating setback in accurate distribution of school materials, they added.
To add to the students’ woes, the Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme implementing agencies at the grassroots level are forced to sign an oath of assurance of providing regular mid-day meals. Therefore, the villagers requested the government to provide mid-day meals to the students of the area regularly and without fail. The Anganwadi centres in the area are also not functioning as they should be doing. So they appealed for revival of the system.
A mockery to National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the villagers rued that the ambulance provided under NRHM has not reached their respective village yet and demanded for 24X7 ambulance service to meet the health care of the people.
The 15 villages under Wakching area have also not received the grant-in-aid under Rural Development (RD) schemes since 2012. Besides, unnecessary deduction, including expenditure for visiting audit team, under RD is very discouraging, they added.
The 15 villages, participating in the ENSF ‘Advocacy Tour’, pleaded for proper implementation of various schemes and their judicious use so that the public gets the benefits they are meant for.
The ENSF ‘Advocacy Wheel Tour’ is sponsored by Eastern Naga Legislators Union and sponsored Medicines Sans Frontier Doctors. Eastern Mirror is the media partner of the programme.
