Meal fund kept pending for 22,521 Adi Dravidar Welfare hostel students
As a regular practice, a meal allowance is given to students every academic year. The allowances are calculated per child and are given three times in the entire academic year
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CHENNAI: The Adi Dravidar Welfare (ADW) department has allegedly not released the meal allowance for 22,521 students residing in school and college hostels across Tamil Nadu.
As a regular practice, a meal allowance is given to students every academic year. The allowances are calculated per child and are given three times in the entire academic year.
For a school student, the meal allowance per child for a month is set as Rs 1,400 and for a college student, the per month allowance is Rs 1,500.
As per ADW department sources, the meal allowance for 72,971 students in the last academic year was released without issues. However, teachers and wardens speaking to DT Next claim that in the current academic year, the allowance has only been released for 50,450 students in the first quarter between June, July and August 2024.
And, the allowance for the remaining 22,521 students, both residing in school and college hostels, are pending from the ADW department. Due to this, the wardens are forced to shell out money from their own pockets to buy vegetables and groceries.
But, speaking on what led to the non-dispense of funds for 22,521 students, a member of the Federation of Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Teachers' Welfare Association explained, "The ADW department at the beginning of the academic year directed all hostel wardens to upload the details of students residing in the hostels on ‘Nallosai’ app, designed specifically for data updation. But, we could not upload most students’ details as the One Time Password (OTP) is sent to parents' mobile numbers, who either refuse to share or do not receive it, since they reside in remote locations.”
A hostel warden in south TN pointed out that most of them began facing difficulty in uploading information for reasons that parents were unreachable, refused to share OTP and lacked understanding. “We uploaded the details of students whose parents verified the information. And, we could not upload details of the remaining 22,521 students due to this.”
The question now is how will the meal requirements of students be met.
T Anand, the director of the ADW department told DT Next, "Almost three weeks ago, the department released the funds for students whose details could be validated. We introduced this process to avoid duplication of data. Also, I have given a free hand to my district officers to verify the numbers and meet the demands."