हिंदी
(Bikram S Majithia says AAP govt was imperiling the future of SC students as well as technical institutions)
Chandigarh, 7 February 2024
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today condemned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and its chief minister for not taking up the plight of two lakh scheduled caste students whose scholarship under the Post Matric SC Scholarship scheme had not been released by the centre imperiling their education as well as the financial health of 1,000 technical institutions in Punjab.
In a statement here, senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia said “this indifference to the plight of the SC students is nothing new. This AAP government is only interested in self publicity and squandering State funds on advertisements. It is due to this that the required effort has not been put to secure the release of Rs 145 crore from the centre to ensure the same can be released to the students”.
Mr Bikram Majithia said release of Rs 145 crore into the accounts of the beneficiaries for the 2022-23 academic year had not been released till now even though the academic session had come to an end. He said since the amount also included the institution fee component which the students had to remit to their institutions, the technical institutions had also been adversely affected. He said the situation could get worse for the institutions as they would find it difficult to get the funds remitted from the pass-outs.
Mr Majithia said this laxity on the part of the AAP government would also hamper timely release of scholarship to students for the current academic session that is 2023-24. He said as per reports there was a huge backlog of fee disbursement under the scheme for 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23.
Asking the AAP government to wake up from its slumber, Mr Majithia said “both the present AAP government as well as the previous Congress governments have discriminated against scheduled caste students”. He said repeated delay in release of scholarship funds as well as scams in their distribution had already resulted in a drastic reduction of SC students pursuing higher studies in Punjab.
