ST/SC Department Focuses on holistic development of children with system enablers for transformation

Bhubaneswar: With a focus on the educational development of the children belonging to the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities, the ST&SC, M&BCW department has decided to work for the holistic development of individuals and prioritize building system enablers for transformation.

With a motto ‘We are a name, not a Number’, the focus of the initiative is to treat each student as an individual and not as a number.

The system enablers include providing a Holistic Environment for Learning (HOSTEL), smart hostel management and monitoring system using IT, provision of support in terms of feeder portals and integration of help desks and mo seva kendras for smooth and transparent scholarship disbursements, systematic improvement in monitoring activities in selective areas, creating collective futures and change enablers, focused approach in selective geographies for convergence in livelihood and more.

The decision was taken during a 2-day long state-level conference of District Welfare Officers (DWO) and Project Administrators (PA) of Integrated Tribal Development Agencies (ITDA) of different districts organized at the academic wing of SCSTRTI, Bhubaneswar on December 28 and 29. The conference was held under the chairmanship of Roopa Roshan Sahoo, Commissioner-cum-Principal Secretary, ST & SC Development, Minorities & Backward Classes Welfare Department.

The system enablers will be put into effect from January.

In the first phase of the project, the department targets to transform 1000 hostels into smart hostels with dedicated digital learning corners.

The target is to bring saturation in all amenities with health and wellness being given priority. Games, Aspiration walls, and Branding are other such elements for providing a holistic environment for learning.

To ensure better health and wellness of SC & ST students, the department today fixed a sum of Rs 200 per boarder for medical expenses towards health and wellness.

Besides, hostel management and monitoring is going to get smarter with the use of IT.

More focus is being given to ANWESHA hostels, Asset registers, bringing of stories about achievements (SAAKAR) from the communities, and assistance under Observe to Act (O2A), which is a proforma tour that helps district profiles.

Besides, during the conference, social media and governance orientation was done to familiarize with the language of social media.

The focused approach in selective geographies for convergence in livelihood targets putting up a robust mechanism for bringing out the best in livelihood activities under Mission Jeevika, Natural farming, Article 275(1), VanDhan Yojana (VDVK), OPELIP, Skill Development, FRA, Collectives, etc.

Resolve to Solve is another aspect highlighted for which there will be Monday musings every Monday morning. The Commissioner cum Secretary will connect to districts every Monday morning to listen to issues and resolve them.