Govt cornered over delay in disbursal of scholarships

Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 25

The state government today came under a sharp attack in the Assembly over the delay in the distribution of funds to students under the minority pre-matric and post-matric scholarship scheme.

Leader of Opposition, Sunil Jakhar, said the distribution of the funds, released by the central government under the scheme, has been delayed by a year. Welfare Minister Gulzar Singh Ranike claimed the release of funds to students was delayed due to lengthy process.

Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal assured Jakhar that the funds would be released soon. Sukhbir also informed the House that this year the state government had allocated Rs 450 crore to cover maximum number of students.

Jakhar asserted that the Union Government had released Rs 41.38 crore on August 30, 2013. However, the money was not released to the students concerned from the state treasury till August 28, 2014. Responding to a question, Food and Supply Minister Adesh Partap Singh said that the verification of 30,92,075 blue cards issued to families for distribution of “atta-dal” was in progress. He said in case of any irregularity in the process, action would be taken against the officials concerned.

Jakhar said in his constituency of Abohar, 17,000 cards had not been verified by the SDM concerned. Kairon said that he would like to set up a commission to check the distribution of atta-dal.