Lack of community certificate stops a tribal student from pursuing medicine; tribals demand government take necessary steps to improve their lives
Coimbatore: A Tribal student is unable to enroll for medical college as she does not have a community certificate. Coming from an underprivileged village, she is the first to pursue college education.
She lives in a village that lacks basic amenities including electricity and toilets. The place is rife with partially built greenhouses, huts with leaky roofs, and students who discontinue studies because of infrastructural scarceness. This is not a village that is located in the middle of a dense forest or the mountains. This is where the Malasar tribes live, Rotti Kavundan Pudur, bang in the Thirumalayampalayam town panchayat, a place in the plains that has no amenities that a tribal settlement in the deep woods would have.
The people here eke out their living as daily wage labourers in the nearby farms. Living in cramped huts, they struggle a lot during the rainy season. For some, the greenhouse project has been under construction for long. The toilet, built at a cost of Rs 6 lakh, has been locked for several months.Electricity and good roads are yet to arrive. The tribes are worried that the days are equally dark as the nights for them. Many are unable to get government benefits as they do not have a family card or Aadhaar card or the tribal caste certification.
Despite so many setbacks, Sanghavi, the 19-year-old daughter of Muniyappan and Vasanthamani from the village has overcome all these obstacles to study up to class XII.Caste certification stands an obstacle in the way of Sanghavi, who studied with the ambition of becoming a medico right from an early age. She enrolled in a private college to prepare for the NEET, but was forced to give her studies up in a few months as she did not have a community certificate. On top of this, the death of Sanghavi's father a few days ago has left the family in a state of despair.
Sanghavi said despite repeated applications for a caste certificate, one has not been issued yet because of which she is unable to pursue medicine certificate. She said that with a community certificate and some financial help she can prepare for the NEET exam and make her medical college dream come true. The tribals demand the government to take the necessary steps to provide community certificates and basic facilities to all the students in the village.