Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday announced to launch an agitation in case the Congress-led Punjab Government did not release Rs 500 crore due to the state’s SC students on account of Post-Matric scholarship scheme by March 31.
The party also demanded action against the state Finance Minister Manpreet Badal and the state Welfare of SCs and BCs Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot “for compromising the dignity of SC students who were being humiliated by both Government and Private College managements for failing to deposit the tuition fee which was the responsibility of the State government under the central scheme”.
Party MLA Pawan Kumar Tinu said that the Congress government diverted Rs 270 crore received in February this year for the SC scholarship scheme from the Central Government, and there was a backlog of around Rs 250 crore in distribution of this scholarship taking the total amount due to students to more than Rs 500 crore.
Tinu said that even as students were not being given their scholarship, the Congress Government had allowed college managements to charge them admission fee which was not applicable to SC students earlier during SAD-BJP tenure. “While enrolment of SC students has dropped from three lakh to two lakh during the last one year, it is likely to drop even further due these new measures,” he said.
“It seems the Congress government does not want SC students to pursue higher studies and become eligible for the Ghar Ghar Naukari scheme which is anyway on paper only”, he added.
He pointed that the management of Government Mohindra College, Patiala, had put up a notice asking all SC students to deposit their scholarship fee or they would not be issued roll numbers, and the same notices had been issued by many private colleges also. “The situation has become such that private college managements are not giving degrees to students whose scholarship fee has not been paid by the government,” he said.
The SAD will now take up this cause and take it to its logical conclusion, said Tinu while declaring that in case the Congress Government did not release the scholarship by March 31, we would start an intensive agitation to ensure SC students are not denied their rights.