Scheme introduced for students loses steam in dist

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 11

Glaring problems, which Dalit students had been facing every year, due to delay in disbursal of the SC Post- Matric Scholarship by the governments has led to a drastic fall in number of applicants.

Despite repeated extension in the last date to apply for the scholarship, only 18,803 Dalit students from Jalandhar district applied this year. This particular number is too small for Jalandhar, which is considered Dalit hub with a population of five to six lakh voters.

Last year, 22,179 beneficiaries enrolled for the scheme from the district and this year the number has dropped by 3,376 applicants.

Actual number of college students who sought the scheme this year stands at 10,903 and remaining 7,900 applicants were from Class XI, XII, ITIs and nursing institutes.

Maximum applicants (7,702) were from Jalandhar-1 tehsil. There has been a very poor response from Shahkot sub-division from where only 33 students applied for the scholarship. Phillaur sub-division, which has a maximum number of Dalit students, has a low turnout of just 360 beneficiaries.

Officials of the District Welfare Department said earlier, the last date to apply for the scheme was February 5, which was extended to February 15. He said they were expecting a few more applications in the next few days.

Balwinder Kumar, a BSP leader and a Dalit student said,

“Going by population of Dalits in the district, number of applicants under the SC Post-Matric Scholarship scheme is too low. The governments and colleges have made the entire process very tedious. Only a student who is very pushy is able to get enrolled under it. Students are made to feel as if they are beggars and are belittled almost every day.”

He said, “Either the SC students are arranging their own fee by taking loans or are opting for part-time courses rather than taking admission in mainstream courses.”

While the Congress leaders had been alleging that the Centre’s policies had led to erosion of the scheme, the Akalis blamed the BJP and the Congress.

SAD legislator Pawan Tinu, who had been repeatedly raking up the issue, said, “The Centre as well as the Punjab Government has led to exploitation of Dalit students. Needy students have been facing trouble and humiliation right from getting admission to appearing in exams and getting degrees. The scheme, which was meant for their upliftment, has led to lose of morale and is creating hindrances in studies.”

He said, “An amount of Rs309 crore, which the Centre had released to Punjab in March 2020 is yet to be disbursed to colleges. The institutes had withheld degrees of around 50,000 students (some of them for three years) as the government was not releasing grants to them. In such a scenario, a dip in number of applicants is very much expected.”