Avtar Bhat
JAMMU, Apr 28: The career of hundreds of JK students selected under PM’s Special Scholarship Scheme (SSS) is turning bleak with Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Ministry outrightly refusing to pay the scholarships to them on certain grounds.
According to sources, over 3000 students of J&K selected for various professional degree courses under PM’s Special Scholarship Scheme (SSS) during 2013-14 batch are facing humiliation through the hands of their respective college authorities as they have been unable to pay the college dues including tuition fee due to non release of scholarships by HRD Ministry till date.
Sources said, launched in 2009 by Prime Minister’s Office under the name of rehabilitation of Kashmiri youth, the scheme worked well in 2009 and 2012. However, to give benefit to the students of entire State of J&K its name was changed from rehabilitation of Kashmiri Students to Rehabilitation of J&K Students in 2010, sources added.
Sources said soon after its launch, the PMO outsourced the Scheme to HRD Ministry which later utilized the services of AICTE in scrutinizing the documents of the students admitted under the scheme in various professional and non professional colleges outside the State. However the AICTE objected in naming the scheme as rehabilitation scheme on certain technical reasons and suggested that it should be named as scholarship scheme with the result the number of students to be given admission under the scheme from militancy ravaged J&K State was fixed at Rs 5000 per year.
Later, the Union Government handed over the scheme to State Government for making the selection process etc, sources said, adding the criteria was fixed under which the students must have passed their 10th and 12th from J&K , they must be State subjects of J&K and the annual income of their families must be below Rs 4.5 lakh.
Sources said that in 2009-10, only 34 students got admission under the scheme and they too were the relatives of some higher ups in Civil Secretariat as the scheme was not given much publicity that year. In 2010-11 about 110 students from the State got admission under the scheme and this became a cause of concern for Government of India as the response to the scheme was very poor, sources added.
Sources said, later the Political Advisor to then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh took up the issue with State Government and stressed that the scheme be given wide publicity through advertisements etc.
A meeting was convened by the HRD, AICTE and State Government representatives to find out the ways and means that how the scheme can get a good response in the State and to make it broad based the income of the family of a student seeking admission under the scheme was increased to Rs 6 lakh from 4.5 lakh, sources said.
Some NGOs and other agencies were involved to give wide publicity to the scheme and every one came forward who wanted to mint money and efforts were made in 2012 -2013 to save the scheme, sources said, adding in the same year over 6800 students were selected under the schemes.
Later, Jammu Kashmir Peace Foundation head Fayaz Bhat, Amit Bhan, a social activist and some NGOs invited the then HRD Minister, Palam Raju to State and convened a joint meeting of HRD, AICTE and J&K Admission Cell in middle of 2013 at Srinagar. The conference was held in SKICC Srinagar on July 27 and next day over Rs nine crore were released by HRD Ministry for the scheme.
However, concern was felt after the clashes between some Kashmiri and non Kashmiri students were reported in various professional colleges outside J&K later and in the another meeting held in Srinagar in September 2013 which was also attended by then Union Minister and NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah it was suggested that not more than five students from the State be admitted in each professional college to avert the clashes.
Sources said the students to be admitted in these colleges were placed under three lists…. List one, List two and List three. While the scholarships for List one and List two were released by HRD Ministry the List three is still pending and the number of students falling in this List is 3171, they said.
Sources said these students are facing total humiliation through the hands of college authorities as they are unable to pay their dues and some have even been terminated while others to save their career have disposed off their properties to continue the training course.
Sources said that HRD Ministry also did not follow the criteria in releasing the scholarships and did favoritism. While one engineering college in Punjab was paid the entire fee for 174 students by HRD Ministry others were ignored. Moreover, the communication gap between the AICTE and HRD has also been one of the cause of the prevailing mess, sources added.
Sources said the State Government authorities earlier also did not take interest in proper implementation of the scheme and tried to sabotage it.
Sources said that last year despite the Apex Court guidelines that admission process should be over by September last, the counseling was held at Srinagar in September itself. Later, due to the flash floods in the State the verifications of the students could not be done and the authorities failed to submit the lists of those students to AICTE who were unable to attend to counseling due to floods. This way the authorities have played with the future of these students.
However, when contacted Minister of Education Naeem Akhtar told Excelsior that some unscrupulous persons were involved in admission process and they managed the admission of hundreds of students in unrecognized colleges without following the criteria and norms due to which the HRD Ministry stopped the scholarships.
He said the State Government has taken up the issue with Union HRD Ministry as well as PMO and there is every hope that some thing tangible will materialize so that the career of these students is not put at stake. The State Government is on the job, he added.
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