Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 23: Minister for Higher Education Mohd Akbar Lone was today cornered not only by the Opposition but by own ‘coalition’ (NC-Cong) members in the Upper House of the State Legislature on the issue of Prime Ministers Special Scholarship Scheme ( PMSSS) and the alleged luring and cheating of MBBS/ BDS/ B Tech students by some NGOs.
The members irrespective of their party affiliations, launched virtual attack on the Minister and grilled him for about 15 minutes in the House, demanding that an FIR be registered against those who were involved in luring and cheating J&K students of Medical and engineering courses in various professional colleges outside the State putting their career at stake and expose all such NGOs who were involved in it.
The issue was jointly raised by Khalid Najeeb Suhrawardy and Sheikh Ghulam Rasool from National conference and Mohd Muzaffar Parray from Congress Party during `Question Hour’ in the Legislative Council. They alleged that innocent students were made to suffer for their no fault and several State based NGOs lured and cheated the innocent students and their parents and extorted huge money from them by claiming themselves as mediators. They asked what action has been taken by Government against such people. Many of the students were thrown out by the managements of several professional colleges outside the State and they suffered badly.
Denying that State Government had any role in the process, the Minister said Union HRD Ministry was directly involved and some NGOs must have pocked their nose into the affairs. He asked the members to give the list of the NGOs involved so that he could lodge an FIR in this regard.
The members got agitated over the response of Minister and asked if the Government was admitting that some NGOs said to have played some dubious role behind then what was the problem to hand over the case to the Crime Brach for investigation. The names of the accused would automatically come out. They said this issue was also raised some time back in the House in Srinagar and then Chief Minister had given assurance. What progress was made thereafter? Feeling heat from all the sides, the visibly cornered minister then agreed to lodge an FIR in this regard today itself.
Earlier, replying to the main question Mr Lone said from the year 2014 onwards for facilitating the students applying for the scholarships the Higher Education would invite and scrutinize the applications of the candidates and upload the duly verified lists of eligible candidates on the AICTE web portal. AICTE would there after provide centralized admissions to the eligible students for the purpose.
Replying to another question, Higher Education Minister said during 2013-14, the AICTE had received 5608 applications but recommended only 1502 eligible students for scholarship based on maximum five students from a particular college, however, on the recommendation of the Chief Minister made to the Prime Minister for clearing scholarship cases of the ineligible students as a one time relaxation for safeguarding their future. Therefore, the inter-ministerial committee recommended additional 2245 ineligible candidates for scholarships on the basis of the relocation proposal as well as financial constraints, and hence, now 3747 students have been recommended for the scholarships, subject to the condition that in next year the additional students would be relocated to other institutions within the same University or other University in the region subject to vacancy in the second year and the students having passed first year.
Mr Lone further claimed that neither State Government had any role in implementing the PM’s Special Scholarship Scheme nor any NGOs/ private persons have been authorized for its sponsorship. Commenting to the allegations raised by the Members the minister admitted that matter has been viewed seriously and referred to CID for identification of such persons / NGOs who got even those students admitted in bulk in various colleges outside the State who did not fulfill the eligibility criteria. The report is waited and the matter has also been taken up with the Home department.
Several members including Naeem Akhtar from PDP, Devinder Singh Rana, Showkat Ganai and Shehnaz Ganai from NC, Sayed Rafiq Shah from NPP, Muzaffar Parray, Naresh Gupta, B R Kundal and Jahangir Mir from Congress also raised supplimentaries.
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