Gujarat: Send children to schools, basic amenities assured, CM Patel tells nomadic tribes

The housing society is an initiative of the state government, in collaboration with the Vicharta Samuday Samarthan Manch (VSSM) and the civil society. Sixty five pucca houses for as many families of the community have been built as part of the society in Rampara Beti, a village around 25 km east of the city on National Highway 27.

“Education is the catalyst of progress, be it progress of a family, society, state or a nation. I exhort you to join the mainstream as envisioned by (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi. Do remember us if you need our help in matters of education and we shall be ready to stand by you and work with you,” the CM said emphasising that children’s education was key to the success of family and the society at large.

He recalled that members of NTs have suffered even at the hands of the government. “Some of them (beneficiaries) told me that they can’t manage even one bath per month. They have lived through such times. Wherever they pitch their tents, the Gujarat government’s one arm or the other, without doubt, would have harassed them. They would be told to vacate a plot, saying a new scheme is to be implemented there.

If they try to live on footpaths, they would be removed from there also. The joy of all those who have gone through all of this is unmatchable when they get a pucca house of their own,” said CM Patel. The pucca houses will provide a sense of security to NT families and water connections and electricity connections will ease the hardships these families face in day-to-day lives, said CM Patel, adding it was Modi who started constructing houses for the NTs in 2005.

NTs are communities who move from one village to another in search of work and livelihood. Traditionally, they have been practising occupations such as sharpening edges of kitchen knives and scissors, repairing worn and broken utensils, selling used garments and bullocks, snake-charming, rope-walking and other stunts of balancing, etc.

Ahmedabad-based VSSM had been working for the housing colony for the past seven years for these families who had been living in and around Rajkot city for the past 15 to 20 years. The state government allotted plots of land to these families in 2017-18 for free and gave each family Rs 1.20 lakh grant under the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Awas Yojana for construction of houses, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, RC Makwana said. With the help of donors, the NGO mobilised the rest of the funding needed for constructing the pucca houses.

Every house in the society has cost an average Rs 2.5 lakh, said Mittal Patel, founding trustee of VSSM. She said that beneficiaries contributed an average of Rs 50,000 while the balance came in form of donations.

“We won freedom 70 years ago. But for us, the era of independence begins from today only,” Naran Rathod, one of the beneficiaries, said in his response after receiving keys of his home. “I couldn’t get an education nor could I give it to my sons. But now their children have started getting education. It appears our lives are changing,” he added.

Rathod said that VSSM promised the families help in getting the homes constructed on the condition that they enrol their children in some schools. “There are lots of factories in and around Rampara Beti village and the families have already started getting work in them,” Mittal Patel said.

The CM also announced the construction of a hostel that will have a capacity to accommodate 200 children from the families preparing to
settle down in Rampara Beti and its surrounding areas.

The CM also handed over land titles to 19 beneficiaries who have been allotted residential plots while distributing orders for allotment of housing plots to 300 other beneficiaries in Rampara Beti as well as in villages of Gondal and Paddhari talukas of Rajkot. Patel also handed over cooking gas connections to 29 beneficiaries of Rampara Beti. In addition, the CM also inaugurated quarters for police in Atkot village and Mavdi on the outskirts of Rajkot. He then dedicated to the public RO water purification plants installed in 650 anganwadis of the district.