Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MlA and the leader of Opposition Sukhpal Khaira on Tuesday castigated Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and his government for failing to provide post-matric scholarship to lakhs of Scheduled Caste (SC) students jeopardizing their future.
The issue of post-matric scholarship has been hanging fire ever since Capt Amarinder took over the reins of Punjab, said Khaira.
He said that Punjab has been defaulting to appropriately use the Central Government grant of post-matric scholarship meant for the underprivileged SC students. “Although the Central Government released approximately Rs 115 crore post-matric scholarship grant for SC students of Punjab for the last academic year, the Punjab government has miserably failed to pass on the benefit to the weaker sections students, endangering their future,” he said.
Khaira releasing the information sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, stated that Rs 115 crore was received during the financial year of 2017-18, out of which only 2,165 students were given post-matric scholarships while 2,88,651 students were denied the said benefit, which clearly indicates that the underprivileged students have been denied their rights.
He said that the Punjab government, on the pretext of misuse of post-matric scholarship grant by private colleges, ordered an audit of the said grant that has been not completed even as on today.
“On the contrary, the Social Welfare Minister released the said Rs 115 crore grant to the government colleges of the state,” said Khaira adding that as a result of this “faulty” decision, managements of all private colleges have decided not to allow admission to the SC students for the upcoming academic session.
Khaira said that in other words, Capt Amarinder, by denying the benefit of post-matric scholarship to SC students, is not only endangering their future but also denying quality education to the underprivileged children of Punjab.
lambasting the state government for taking so much time to audit the misuse of grant for the previous years without fixing any responsibility on any institution or individual even after more than a year, Khaira said that many teachers organizations have complained to him that they are failing to discharge their duty to teach children in government schools, as they have been deputed to carry out audit exercise for the last one year, as a result education is in suffering in government schools.
He urged Capt Amarinder to personally intervene and resolve the deadlock of private colleges denying admissions to SC students in the current session, as they have not been reimbursed the fees for SC students of the previous years.
“It is gross discrimination with the dalits of Punjab, which is intolerable. I hope that the government would wake up from its deep slumber on such a burning issue,” he added.