SRINAGAR: The Union government has blocked a Kashmir-specific scholarship program, withholding money that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (India’s Education Ministry) would pay to various professional college where more than 5000 Kashmiri boys and girls are enrolled. The move has upset parents here with many forced to raise loans and sell properties to sponsor the completion of degrees of their wards.
Pleading in the parliament for the continuation of the scheme, which was launched by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a way to reach out to the “angry Kashmiri youth”, PDP MP Tariq Hamid Karra said the suspension of the scheme by the India’s education ministry has anguished people here. He also disclosed that aside from the listed college, various insignificant colleges too had enrolled students through some NGOs in order to “usurp” money that would come from the ministry.
“Unilaterally withholding Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme has forced most of these students to leave their studies midway and return home,” Karra said in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. He quoted one of the students who was pursuing a nursing course saying that her father earned Rs.200 a day and often remained ill.
“I would like to bring the attention of this august House to a very grave situation perpetrated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development whereby this unilateral order of withholding the fee amount sanctioned for at least 5000 students of Jammu and Kashmir studying in various colleges across India under the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme has jeopardized their career,” the PDP leader said during Zero Hour in the Indian Lok Sabha.
Congress government had launched the scheme as a “follow up” to the deadly unrest in Kashmir during the summer of 2010. “During that unrest the State government did not hesitate to gun down around 120 unarmed young boys. And in order to evaluate the causes and reasons for such unrest, an Expert Group was constituted by the Prime Minister on 18 August 2010. The Expert Group had suggested facilitating higher/technical education for young boys and girls from Kashmir with financial assistance under PMSSS,” he said. The objective of this scheme was to provide tuition fee, hostel fee, cost of books and other incidental charges to students belonging to Jammu & Kashmir who, after passing Class 12 or equivalent examination, secure admission in government colleges/institutions and other select institutions outside the State.
The scheme was launched with much fanfare in 2011. In the first year, only 38 students availed the benefit but in 2012-13 at least 5000 students were admitted to various colleges of India.
Karra said that the colleges entertained students from J&K on the pretext that they would get fee and other expenses reimbursed from the MHRD under PMSSS. As the MHRD has not released the sanctioned amount, colleges are forcing the aggrieved students to either deposit fee or leave college.
“Under the PMSSS, many low-profile colleges, in blatant violation of rules, had enrolled scores of students from Kashmir for various courses to usurp the scholarship money. These colleges preferred to enroll Kashmiri students under PMSSS after various local NGOs approached them with the assurance that Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) would pay their fees.”
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