Warning the private educational institutions in Punjab for discriminating against the Dalit students, the Centre on Wednesday made it clear that strict action would be initiated against such institutes.
The word of caution was issued by the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla following complaints of irregularities and discrimination against Dalit students by some private educational institutions in the state.
Sampla, also Punjab BJP president, said: “Strict action will be taken against private educational institutions if the Government receives complaints of discrimination against Dalit students or misutilisation of funds for post-matric scholarships scheme for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs)”.
He said: “We have been receiving complaints against some private educational institutions about discrimination against Dalit students, which include roll numbers not being given to them or they being not allowed to sit in exams for non-payment of fees.”
“We will take strict action against such educational institutions if we receive complaints in future,” said the Union Minister.
Under the post-matric scholarships scheme for SC, ST students, their entire fee is paid to the college by the Government, he added.
Sampla said that he had come to know that some private educational institutions were misutilizing the scholarship schemes by making “fake” entry of the students.
“We have received complaints in which we found some institutions were making double entry or fake entry of the students. We warn them not to indulge in such illegal practice otherwise strict action, which includes suspension of their recognition, would be taken,” he said adding that such complaints have come from across the country.
Sampla said that in Punjab, about `60 crore has been surrendered by the educational institutions under the scholarship scheme.
“States have also been asked to set up ‘fee fixation committee’ to bring in uniformity in the fees to be charged by educational institutions…We have witnessed a big difference between the fee charged by a Government-owned institution and private institution,” said Sampla.
He added that the respective states’ ‘fee fixation committee’ will tell us about the fees charged by the Government institution and to what extent private ones can charge.
Sampla informed that his Ministry had released a sum of `173 crore under Post-Matric Scholarships scheme for Scheduled Caste students in Punjab.
“With this, backlog of fees for the year 2014-15 has been cleared and 30 per cent of the total fee for 2015-16 has been cleared,” he said.
