Children - Terre des Hommes

137
from SC community and rest are OBCs. In Amalabadi DP
camp there are more than 400 families but only 200 managed
to get jobs in the company. NALCO acquired 240 acres of
agricultural land from the community in Janiguda village but
none of the families were given any jobs. They merely received
meagre cash compensation in 1981. In Marichimala, of the
more than 50 affected households, only one person who
lost both land and house was given a job with the company,
while in Putsil 18 families, who lost both land and house,
were given a job.
Table 2.15 gives data collected in some of the affected
villages visited by the study team regarding families affected,
compensation provided and jobs in the company.
Education Status of Children
Living in the Mining-affected
Villages
There are two schools maintained by NALCO—Delhi
Public School which is an English medium school and the
second is the Saraswathi Vidya Mandir which is an Oriya
medium school. It was seen that the educational institutions
these institutions and have very unreliable transport facilities.
The people also reported that they do not like to send their
children to the NALCO run school as the children cannot
cope with the curriculum and many of them drop out in high
school. Besides, the social barriers between adivasi and dalit
children and those of employees and management level staff
of NALCO are another cause for the displaced community
children not attending these schools. Most of them attend
the government primary and upper primary schools,
which have poor infrastructure and quality of teaching.
School drop-out rates are seen to be alarming in the area.
Table 2.16 is indicative of the high drop-out rates among
children in the affected villages. This is also indicative of the
number of children who are involved in child labour. Table
2.17 gives the official DISE data as a comparison for some of
the affected villages.
In the Janiguda village school, there are two regular teachers
and one para-teacher but out of them, only the headmaster
is regular to the school, as reported by the villagers. The
school building is in very poor condition and has minimal
infrastructure facilities for students. The headmaster stated
that the school drop-out rates are increasing and this is an
issue of concern as children are taken for agricultural labour
Table 2.16: Some data on children of affected families in Koraput district
District Block Village Total number Total no. of No of child No of school
of children school going labourers drop-outs
children
Koraput Damanjodi Amalabadi 800–900 250–300 150 20 last year
Koraput Champapadar 300 60–70 50–70 Data not
available
Damanjodi Damanjodi 3,000-3,500 Around 2,500 500–600 Data not
available
Kakiriguma Goudaguda 650–700 222 60 15–20 last year
Damanjodi Janiguda Around 250 30–35 Around 150 More than 150
Source: Local community leaders (figures are approximate based on people’s statements)
set up by the company are mainly for children of employees
and management staff and not for the local communities.
Hence, almost none of the adivasi and dalit children of the
displaced families or surrounding villages attend the company
run schools except for the children of employees living here.
For one, the schools are located close to the township where
the employees live, whereas the affected adivasi and dalit
communities and the DP camps are located far away from
or for grazing cattle. At least 50–60 children from Goudaguda
village were reported to have dropped out from school and 20–
30 children were irregular. At Janiguda the villagers reported
that more than 150 children had dropped out of school.
There is one primary school, which barely functions regularly,
in Champapadar village. For a colony of its size, there are only
3–4 college level students and 4–5 youth with a diploma.