One recurrent complaint that emerged during a recent public hearing of the NCPCR was the poor state of infrastructure in schools and hostels in the hinterland. A study of about 50 panchayat schools brought out by People’s Watch in 10 districts served as a sample. Activists deposed that majority of the schools lacked basic amenities, such as a proper building. Drinking water facilities were non-existent in several institutions. Some of the schools, the study stated, had one toilet for 300 students. This rendered the facility unusable owing to lack of maintenance, thereby influencing enrollment. If schools were accused of improper infrastructure, student hostels emerged to be even worse. Four cases from Cuddalore and Tindivanam served as examples. At the hostel attached to the Nandanar Government Higher Secondary School, students over the years had repeatedly protested poor facilities. V A Ramesh Nathan of the Social Awareness Society for Youths (SASY), an NGO that brought out the cases, alleged the food served was substandard. Complaints, though, fell on deaf ears. In Tindivanam last year, he claimed that a student of the Adi Dravida welfare hostel fell unconscious after food was not served for two days. “The hostel gate was locked on the outside with a few students inside. One of them fell unconscious. People in the neighboring building had to break in. A complaint was lodged but there was no action. The person in charge was only transferred,” he alleged. At a government school in Seppakam, Cuddalore, it was brought to the notice of the jury that a Class XI student died owing to electric shock from faulty equipment. The incident happened when the headmaster allegedly asked the students to clean the labs as workers for this job were unavailable. The story was similar in many Adi Dravida and Tribal establishments across the State. Officials in fact agreed that a large number of warden vacancies - over 200 - were impacting the functioning of these hostels. For schools under the Adi Dravida and Tribal Welfare Department, officials deposed that at least 500 teacher vacancies remained in many subjects and added that efforts were on to fill them at the earliest. The chief minister had also released huge funds for the development of these institutions, they said. Vasanthi Devi, NCPCR jury member, pointed out that such hostels had “deplorable” conditions “unfit for human habitation.” It was then suggested that an audit of such schools and hostels be undertaken.