Secretary, Social Welfare, Cooperatives and Tribal Affairs, Dr Farooq Ahmad Lone today chaired the meeting of officials of Tribal Affairs Department to review the ongoing construction of Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) and development of Cluster Tribal Model Villages (CTMV) in the tribal areas of Jammu and Kashmir.The meeting was attended by Director Tribal Affairs Mohammad Rafi, Director Finance Dr SK Sen, Special Secretary M S Choudhary, Deputy Secretary Vivek Modi, Assistant Director Sushil Gupta and other concerned officials of Tribal Affairs Department.Secretary Tribal Affairs informed the meeting that the Government of India has approved the development of 16 new CTMVs for the financial year 2018-2019 which will be of great significance for the ST population in the State. In 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 Government of India sanctioned the total of 17 CTMVs to be developed in 13 districts in the State which includes Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag, Kupwara, Leh, Kargil, Doda, Rajouri, Poonch, Reasi, Kathua, Budgam and Kulgam.
It was given out that the Government of India has sanctioned five EMRSs in the district Anantnag, Kulgam, Rajouri, Kargil and Poonch with the aim to provide lodging and boarding facilities and education to Schedule Tribe (ST) students free of cost. Each EMRS will accommodate around 480 students.He informed the meeting that EMRS Anantnag and Kulgam are near completion and are expected to be functional for the academic year 2018-2019. However, EMRS Rajouri, Kargil and Poonch are under construction and will be completed within the time bound manner. All the five EMRSs are being constructed as the estimated cost of 7200 lakh rupees.Regarding the development of Cluster Tribal Model Villages (CTMV), it was informed that the aim of CTMV is to provide basic amenities to ST population in the activities like Education, Health, Skill development, Horticulture, Agriculture, Tourism, RDD, PWD, PDD and PHE.He directed the concerned officials to maintain the highest standard of constructions and said that there should be no compromise on the quality of material used in construction. He further asked the officials to complete all the pending documental works so that no work suffers.