Cong stages walkout in K'taka Council over SC/ST hostel issue

Bangalore, June 28 (UNI) The opposition Congress today staged a walkout in the Karnataka Legislative Council over the government's failure to accommodate all SC/ST students in state-run hostels to enable them pursue their education.

Moving a calling-attention notice, Congress member Motamma said about 30,000 SC/ST students were distressed as the government had denied admissions to them in the state-run hostels and demanded that the government direct its officials to accommodate these students in the existing hostels or make alternative arrangements to enable them continue their education.

Intervening, Leader of the Opposition H K Patil said it was the responsibility of the state government to ensure that these students were accommodated in the hostels. He warned that if the government failed to heed their demand, they would fight out the issue outside the House too.

In his reply, Higher Education Minister D H Shankara Murthy, who was also the Leader of the House, admitted that about 30,000 SC/ST students could not be provided with hostel accommodation due to lack of infrastructure. The problem existed for the last several years and the state government was making earnest efforts to solve it.

Stating that it would not be possible for the state government to accommodate 30,000 students at one go, he said the backlog would be cleared in a phased manner. The problem could be mitigated if all joined hands with the state government, he added.

He informed that the state government had earmarked Rs 1,000 crore for the welfare of SC/ST communities, which was 25 per cent more than the previous year.

Mr Murthy said the government was running as many as 2,140 hostels both pre-metric and post-metric, in which 143,064 SC/ST students had been accommodated. It would be opening 60 new hostels for SC/ST students and another 50 for Other Backward Classes students this year.

Dissatisfied with the Minister's reply, the Congress members, led by Mr Patil, staged a walkout.

Congress members V R Sudarshan, Pratapchand Shetty, S R Patil, A M Hindasageri, Dr L Hanumanthaiah, Prakash Rathod, Mallajamma and S M Anand and JD (U) member Dr M P Nada Gouda, JD (S) member Srikante Gowda and BJP member D S Veeraiah also spoke on the subject.

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