Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Aug 29: In an apparent bid to discourage the students from Jammu region and deprive them of the incentives, Counseling for the Prime Minister Special Scholarship Scheme is being held at Srinagar only.
The scheduled counseling, beginning from tomorrow at S P College Srinagar, is being held for allotment of seats to more than 5000 students, majority of whom belongs to Jammu region.
According to a notification, issued by the Higher Education Department of the State Government, all the eligible applicants who have submitted online application for Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme for the academic year 2014-15 and whose names appear in the corrected provisional merit list, are required to attend the Counseling at S P College Srinagar for allotment of seats.
The counseling will be held from August 30 to September 6.
Pertinent to mention that the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme was launched by the Government of India for students of Jammu and Kashmir who, after passing class XII or equivalent examination, secure admission in Government colleges and other selected institutions outside the State.
The scheme envisages providing 5000 fresh scholarships every year. Out of these, 4500 scholarships are meant for general degree courses (including Agriculture, Horticulture, Veterinary Science etc), 250 for Engineering and 250 for Medical studies. Under the scheme, Rs 30,000 per annum scholarship is provided for general degree course, while for the Engineering and Medical studies, the scholarship is Rs 1.25 lakh and Rs 3 lakh per annum, respectively.
This is for the first time that the State Government is making selection of the candidates under this Scheme.
Earlier, there were numerous complaints of fleecing by some agents and NGOs, who sent the J&K students in the educational institutions outside the State after charging money from the applicants without following the set norms and eligibility criteria for the same. The felony of agents and NGO came to light after a number of J&K students, who were studying in various institutions of higher education outside the State under this scheme, were denied scholarship by Government of India as the claimant did not fulfill the eligibility criteria.
After the State Government took up this matter with the Ministry of Human Resources Development, the latter suggested the former to rectify the things and identify the genuine cases for the scheme under set norms.
Acting on the suggestion, the State Ministry of Higher Education decided to take over the entire exercise of selection of the students under the scheme for which GGM Science College Jammu and Amar Singh College in Srinagar were appointed as nodal agency.
However, the Government decision of conducting counseling of all the students only at Srinagar has come as a shocker for the applicants from Jammu region.
Sources said that out of total 5298 students under the scheme for the current session , 2968 belong to Jammu and the rest 2330 from Kashmir Valley. Despite the fact that number of students from Jammu is greater, the counseling is being held at Srinagar only.
When contacted, Secretary of the Higher Education Sheikh Mushtaq claimed that the State Government had urged the AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education) to conduct the counseling at both Jammu and Srinagar but their request was turned down. “The AICTE wanted to conduct counseling at Chandigarh but the State Government insisted that it should be held within J&K. Though they (AICTE) agreed for this but our request for simultaneous counseling at both Jammu and Srinagar was turned down,” he told the Excelsior.
The Secretary also clarified that in case any candidate from Jammu fails to attend the counseling timely due to certain reasons, he would be accommodated in next scheduled date.
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