Bhubaneswar: More often than not, noble initiatives turn into damp squibs due to bureaucratic hurdles, and Madhurmayee Adarsh Siksha Niketan, a hostel for prisoners’ children, appears to be facing a similar fate.
The first-of-its-kind in the country, the hostel now faces closure due to a tussle between a non-government organisation (NGO), Orissa Patita Udhar Samiti, which is managing the facility, and the state government.
The fear of closure of the hostel is primarily because of three reasons.
First, though the government had asked the NGO to register the hostel under Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, the latter refused to oblige because the Act also allows orphan children to stay in the hostel. The NGO built the hostel on the condition that it would be exclusively meant for the children of jail inmates.
Second, the land, which was originally allotted to the NGO for other purposes, was handed over to the Home department for construction of the hostel on the condition that employees of the existing hostel would also be taken over by the government. But, this condition is yet to be fulfilled.
Third, there is a dearth of funds to run the hostel. Now, the hostel is being run on donations from the public.
Notably, the move to open the hostel was taken after the NGO’s chairman wrote to the Women and Child Development (W&CD) department seeking rehabilitation of the children of the jail inmates.
Through its letter no. 24142/W&CD November 21, 2002, the W&CD department asked the NGO to submit a proposal to build the hostel. The NGO submitted the proposal to the department through the ADG, Prisons, to build a hostel exclusively for rehabilitation of the jail inmates’ children.
Later, the office of the additional ADG of Police-cum-IG of prisons through letter no. 32891(23) October 4, 2003 directed the jail superintendents across the state to send the inmates’ children to the hostel.
The NGO had requested the W&CD department to make a budgetary allocation of Rs 12 lakh per annum for management of the hostel. The department agreed to go ahead with the proposal after due consultation with the IG, Prisons. It also agreed to make budgetary provision of the proposed amount, but in a weird direction asked the NGO to justify the name of the hostel.
Answering a question in the Assembly, the ex-Women and Child Development minister Pramila Mallick March 24, 2005, stated that a proposal in this regard had been sent to her predecessor and she had given positive remarks. Despite that, the department made no budgetary provision for the hostel.
In a span of 15 years (2003-18), the hostel has availed only Rs 1.65 lakh from the state government and around Rs 4 lakh from the Centre.
Later, the standing committee of the Home department for the demand-for-grants for 2009-10 fiscal recommended that the administrative control of the hostel should be transferred to the Home department for smooth functioning of it.
Subsequently, a decision was taken by the Home department after due deliberations that a 100-bed hostel will be built on the land, which was actually allotted to the NGO for other purposes. The NGO donated the land to the Home department for construction of a bigger hostel.
However, the conditions laid down by the NGO while handing over the land and the management of the hostel later became the bone of contention between the department and the NGO. The NGO had requested the Home department to take over the hostel along with its employees as it was done in other cases.
The Home department, however, did not pay any heed to the demand of the NGO and deputed some staff to run the hostel. The government staff also asked the hostel superintendent and other NGO employees to vacate the newly built hostel, the voluntary outfit said, which led to a violent scuffle between the government-deputed staffers and NGO-appointed employees.
The decision to appoint government employees for the management of the hostel was later revoked February 20, 2015 after media highlighted splurging of lakhs towards employees’ salaries who were not working.
The NGO which stressed the fact that the hostel should be exclusively meant for the children of the jail inmates refused to register the hostel under JJ Act as the act will allow other vulnerable children to stay at the hostel. The W&CD department June 22, 2015 had also directed the district authorities that hostels where students are staying need not register themselves under the JJ act.
Moreover, the Home department at a meeting held March 29, 2018, had instructed additional director general (ADG), Prisons, to take action against the prison officials of the state who were sending children of jail inmates to the hostel.
When asked, ADG-cum-IG of Prisons V. Thiagarajan said, “It is unfortunate to hear that such a noble initiative is going to close down. The hostel along with the introduction of open air jails in the state was an excellent step towards jail reforms movement. It was initiated by my predecessor and of which I was also a part.”
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