Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai on Tuesday, 2 June 2026, visited Kondapalli in Bijapur district during the ongoing Sushasan Tihar 2026 governance festival, where he met schoolchildren and reaffirmed the state government's commitment to expanding educational access across the Bastar region.

Posting on X, the Chief Minister wrote: 'बच्चे मन के सच्चे, इरादों के पक्के' ['Children are pure of heart and firm of purpose'], adding that the sons and daughters of the state are the symbols of 'innocent love' and its 'bright future.' He noted that there was a time when the lack of schooling in Bastar stood in the way of children's dreams, but today children there aspire to become doctors, engineers, IAS and IPS officers — a transformation he called 'extremely heartening and satisfying.'

Context

Bijapur is one of the most remote districts in the Bastar division of southern Chhattisgarh, historically characterised by difficult terrain, limited road connectivity, and the sustained impact of left-wing extremism on public service delivery. School infrastructure in the district lagged significantly behind the state average for decades, with many villages lacking functional primary schools within accessible distance.

CM Sai's visit to Kondapalli is part of the state-wide Sushasan Tihar — literally 'Good Governance Festival' — an annual exercise by the Chhattisgarh government that combines scheme reviews, public grievance redressal, and field visits by senior officials and elected representatives to remote areas.

Policy Backdrop

The push to expand education in Bastar's tribal blocks has a layered policy history. Eklavya Model Residential Schools, funded with central assistance, were expanded in tribal blocks of the Bastar division from 2014 onward, providing residential schooling to Scheduled Tribe students who would otherwise have had no access to secondary education. Scholarship and residential schooling schemes for Naxal-affected districts were also introduced under earlier state administrations.

Central assistance for school infrastructure in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) districts was scaled up after a 2014 revision of security-related development schemes, pairing counter-insurgency efforts with human development investment. The current government has continued this trajectory, framing education outcomes in the Bastar region as a marker of governance progress.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries of improved schooling in the region are tribal students from Scheduled Tribe communities in Bijapur and neighbouring blocks — children who, a generation ago, had little realistic prospect of professional careers. The Chief Minister's emphasis on civil-service aspirations — IAS and IPS — signals an intent to integrate these communities into mainstream institutional pathways.

For the BJP-led state government, demonstrating measurable human development gains in former insurgency zones carries both governance and political significance, reinforcing a narrative of normalisation and development in a region long associated with conflict.

What's Next

The Sushasan Tihar 2026 festival is expected to continue across other districts, with senior officials conducting similar outreach programmes. District-level performance in state board examinations and selections to central services from Bijapur and neighbouring blocks in the coming academic years will serve as a practical measure of whether the aspirations voiced on the ground translate into outcomes. CM Sai's pledge — 'our resolve to ensure education and opportunity reaches every child will continue unabated' — sets a benchmark against which future policy delivery in the Bastar region will be assessed.