Let CAG audit SC Post-Matric Scholarship scheme in Punjab: Panel

Rajmeet Singh

Chandigarh, October 11

Dissatisfied with the details furnished by government on the disbursal of the SC Post-Matric Scholarship and the reasons cited for the significant drop in the number of SC students enrolled under the scheme, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes has sought an audit of the scheme by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).

Governor wrote to govt

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• The Governor had also written to the government on SC students dropping out of colleges in the state as the government failed to pay the scholarship amount
• The centrally sponsored SC Post-Matric Scheme came to an end in 2016-2017 as part of the 12th Five-Year Plan
• The Centre did not provide any funds from 2017-2018 to 2019-2020. In 2020-2021, the Centre again started the scheme with a sharing ratio of 60:40 between the Centre and the state

Over the years, there has been a drastic fall in the enrolment of SC students, being largely linked to non-payment of dues of around Rs 2,000 crore under the scheme by the government. Between 2017 and 2022, a radical decline of 1.5 lakh SC students in the enrolment figures has been recorded.

Vijay Sampla, chairman of the commission, told The Tribune that a comprehensive audit of the centrally sponsored scheme would reveal the reasons behind the poor implementation and anomalies in the scheme. “An audit by the CAG or a probe by a retired High Court Judge was required to get the true facts of the case,” said Sampla.

In the past few months, the commission has been summoning government officials on the issue of non-payment of dues under the scheme.

The government maintains that while the scholarship scheme has been running smoothly in the state from 2020-21, any decision on the pending amounts for disbursal under the scheme, which pertain to the period between 2017 and 2020, will be taken after an audit.