Kurseong News - A year has passed hostel finds no boarder

KURSEONG 21 NOV: A year has passed since a 60-bed four-storeyed  girls' hostel for the Scheduled Tribe came up in Kurseong at the initiative of the state backward class department. But no boarder has stepped in. The locals said that the hostel authority had taken no step to recruit the staff required to maintain it. "There is only a caretaker. But he has not been receiving salary for months," one of the locals said.
Notably, the hostel was inaugurated on 31 October 2010. The former secretary for backward classes welfare department of the DGHC, Mr NG Dukpa, IAS, had  inaugurated the hostel. The state government had sanctioned Rs 78 lakh for the construction and the office of the deputy director of sericulture department of the DGHC had provided 54 decimal land for the project. The construction began in May 2005.
The caretaker said he had received neither salary for the past few months nor had he received a formal letter of appointment. "Still I am staying put in the hope that everything would be in order in the coming days as those in charge of the facility would recruit staff," he said. When the hostel was inaugurated, it was assured that several staff for the posts of superintendent, matron, cook and night guards would be recruited soon. "But things have remained the same as on the day of inauguration. No staff member has been appointed and, given the present state of things, there is no hope that they would be appointed soon," a local said.
The hostel has everything by way infrastructure. When it was inaugurated, the official in charge of the hostel had told this correspondent that the economically backward section of the subaltern tribal would be given the first preference in regard to accommodation to the newly built facility. "We look at it when we passing by the building. But everything has remained the same since the day it was inaugurated. We wonder whether it would ever come to life," a tribal girl student said. 
SNS