SC scholarships: Punjab's unaided colleges allege harassment

Jalandhar, February 10

On the problems being faced by the unaided colleges of the state, representatives of the Confederation of Colleges and Schools today met Secretary of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment R. Subrahmanyam and Joint Secretary Kalyani Chadha in New Delhi. The members said while the Union Government had released its 60 per cent share of scholarship amount for 2021-22, they had not received any matching 40 per cent grant from the state government.

They also said the amount that the Centre had released to the state had gone to the bank accounts of SC students, which they said they were not returning to the colleges. “We have asked the officials of the Centre to provide us the list of the account details of the students so that they can ask them to make the payment to the colleges. We are also apprehensive that majority of these students would not even come to the college as they have already spent this money that came to their accounts about 15 days back,” said confederation president Anil Chopra.

Chopra said the students were telling them that they had got opened new bank accounts, which had even got closed as they were non-operative and that they had no clue about the refund coming to them.

“For the sessions, 2017-19 to 2020-21, the state government promised us that they would pay only 40 per cent and request the Centre to pool in the remaining 60 per cent. They were to pay us half of their 40 per cent share by December 31, 2021 and the remaining by March 31, 2022. Till now, we have not got even the first half of the grant,” the confederation members said.

Meanwhile, Secretary R. Subrahmanyam and Joint Secretary Kalyani Chadha said soon changes would be made on the portal of Post Matric Scholarship, in which students and their college get the information on which day and how much amount has been deposited in a particular bank account of the students.