PM’s scholarship scheme may find few takers post attacks on students

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, February 23

As hundreds of Kashmiri students studying in colleges outside the state have returned home following attacks and harassment, the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme may find a few takers in the upcoming admission session.

Students, who were enrolled under the PM’s scholarship scheme, were also targeted by mobs and faced harassment.

The scheme, which was started in 2011, has been offering merit-based scholarship to students of Jammu and Kashmir for the past seven years and is limited to colleges outside the state. It was aimed at enhancing employment opportunities among youth of the state and to create a bridge between Kashmir and other states.

The recent wave of attacks against Kashmiri students in several states, sparked by the Pulwama highway bombing, has, however, created panic and fear in the region, with people expressing reluctance to send their children outside the state to study.

“It is better for everyone if our children are allowed to return safely and take admission in colleges in Kashmir,” said Rafiqa Akhtar, whose son studies engineering in a college outside the state.

Under the scholarship scheme, 5,000 students of the state can avail scholarships on a merit basis to pursue undergraduate studies in colleges outside the state.

Meanwhile, two influential educational bodies in the Valley have threatened that they would boycott the scholarship scheme. The Coaching Centres’ Association of Kashmir and the Private Schools’ Association of Jammu and Kashmir issued a joint statement in which they said nearly 3,000 students had come back home and “more are coming”.

“It is becoming one of the biggest challenges before us. A majority of the students, including girls, have been humiliated, intimidated and threatened. There are cases of beatings also. At places, colleges have been forced to rusticate the students and the police have been pressurised to register cases against them on frivolous charges,” said GN Var, chairman of the Private Schools’ Association of Jammu and Kashmir.

The two bodies said the scholarship scheme was biased towards the educational institutes of the state and demanded that its rules be amended.

“They give Rs 1,200-crore scholarship for colleges outside J&K. Had they included local colleges in the scholarship, the students would have been safe and the local infrastructure would have also developed,” Var said.

Limited to colleges outside state 

• The PM’s scholarship scheme has been offering merit-based scholarship to students of J&K for the past seven years and is limited to colleges outside the state
• It was aimed at enhancing job opportunities and create a bridge between Kashmir and other states