Maharashtra’s government on Tuesday informed the Bombay High Court that it had offered a rehabilitation plan and hostel facilities to students from a village, who have to use a boat and walk through a dense forest to reach their school, but the parents refused to use it. make the same. Three separate affidavits filed by the forest department, the education department and the concerned tehsildar were filed Tuesday with a bank headed by Justice PB Varale.
The affidavits were filed after the Supreme Court suo motu learned (by itself) a news story about how students from Khirkhindi village in Satara district have to travel by boat in the backwaters of Koyana and walk through a forest to get to their school. reach. Assistant Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Subhash Bagadi said in his affidavit that the village of Khirkhindi falls within the critical tiger habitat or core area of the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve and was therefore proposed for rehabilitation.
According to the affidavit, residents of Khirkhindi village were transferred to Bhiwandi in Thane district. However, six families of the village have not yet moved and have not yet taken possession of the farmland and house plots allotted to them in Bhiwandi. Eight students from these six families continue to live in the village of Khirkhindi and take the boat to reach their school. These families have not accepted the rehabilitation offered by the government, the affidavit said.
It would not be possible to build a road to the village and one has to travel by road to reach the place, it said. According to the affidavit submitted by tehsildar Rajendra Pol of Jawali taluka, at least 70 families from Khirkhindi were rehabilitated to Bhiwandi, but six families refused to accept the rehabilitation.
Despite repeated warnings and personally informed, these families were not ready to move and continued to live in the village at their peril, Pol said in the affidavit. Various NGOs have provided these families with various facilities and assistance, such as bicycles, boats and life jackets, the affidavit said.
The education department also sent a proposal to the parents of these students traveling from Khirkhindi that they be accommodated in a hostel in Jawali taluka. But the parents are not ready to send them to the hostel, the affidavit said. The affidavit submitted by Imitiyaz Kazi, the joint secretary of the Department of School Education and Sports, said that out of eight students, two were studying at Khirkhindi Zilla Parishad school and the rest should attend a school in Shembadi because they are in higher education. sitting education. classes.
These students must travel through the Koyana backwaters on a private boat from Khirkhindi to Shembadi and then travel 4km through the forest on foot, the affidavit said. The Supreme Court noted that it would broaden the scope of the plea as students suffer from a lack of facilities and placed the plea for further hearing on June 16.
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