Nagpur: Refusing to settle for state govt’s revision of hostel admission rules, tribal students continued their agitation for the 13th day on Tuesday, demanding that the August 5 govt resolution (GR) be scrapped altogether and that no upper age limit be imposed for admission to govt tribal hostels.Hundreds of students staged a sit-in outside the office of the additional commissioner, tribal development department, at Civil Lines amid tight police security. Protesters maintained that raising the admission age from 26 to 30 years did not address their fundamental objection to having an age ceiling.The tribal development department’s August 5 GR had fixed 26 years as the maximum age for hostel admission. It had also introduced restrictions barring hostel residents from participating in organisations, hunger strikes and marches, and from approaching the media with grievances, among other conditions.Following objections from students, the department issued a revised GR on August 14. The fresh order raised the maximum admission age to 30 years and dropped the contentious restrictions on participation in protests and other activities.Students are demanding that the August 5 GR should be withdrawn completely rather than merely amended, and hostel eligibility should not be linked to an upper age limit. Protest representatives Suraj Atram, Rahul Yelle, Nikhil Bansod and Mamata Naik said the agitation would continue until their demands were accepted.The protesters have also put forward a broader charter of demands concerning tribal education and welfare. These include adequate basic amenities in govt hostels and ashramshalas, scrapping the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system for meals and restoring mess facilities where students are directly provided with food. They have further sought ₹1 crore compensation for families of those who died in the Japtalai incident and ₹5 lakh for those undergoing treatment.
