Cong govt demanding income certificates from SC students to derail post matric scholarship scheme - SAD
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Saturday said after failing to release Rs 442 crore central grant for post matric scholarship to scheduled caste students, the Congress government was now demanding income certificates from new applicants to derail the entire scheme. In a statement, former chief parliamentary secretary and senior SAD leader Pawan Kumar Tinu said the Congress government was now forcing SC students to submit income certificates to avail post matric scholarship to avail admission in schools for the next academic session. “Till now students have to file a self-declaration to avail the post-matric scholarship”, he added. The SAD leader said SC families were being harassed and forced to spend Rs 2,000 to avail Rs 2,600 annually as per the scheme. He said due to heavy rush in Sewa Kendras because a majority had been closed down, SC families had to spend at least two to three days to procure the income certificates. He said they also had to pay for the form and fee and it’s filing besides going through the bother of getting forms signed from requisite officers. “All this comes to an expenditure of Rs 2,000 as families were losing wages to procure these certificates”, he added. Stating that all this was being done to deny the benefits of the scheme to SC students, Mr Tinu said the government had already withheld distribution of Rs 442 crore post matric scholarship to two lakh SC students studying in various colleges across the State. “Now it is creating hurdles to ensure students wishing to avail this scholarship in schools are not able to do the same. This is serving two purposes as far as the government is concerned. It will deny money which it has diverted to other fields to SC students and will also ensure underprivileged students are not able to pursue higher studies. This way there will be no takers for the ghar ghar naukari scheme which anyway is in papers only”, he added. Stating that long queues could be seen at various Sewa Kendras, the SAD leader said many SC families were getting demoralised due to the new cumbersome process and that thousands of students may forgo higher studies due to this reason alone. Demanding that the Congress government revert back to the old system whereby new applicants had to submit a self-declaration form to avail post matric scholarship, he said if this was not done the SAD would hold protests to force the government to relent and end its anti- Dalit policies. Mr Tinu also demanded a high-level central inquiry to ascertain why the Congress government was not releasing Rs 442 crore received from the centre to SC students. He also urged the union social justice ministry to create a mechanism to release post matric scholarship directly into beneficiary accounts from the union ministry itself without any involvement of the Punjab government.
