Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said one lakh scheduled caste students had been denied admission into colleges in Punjab due to the State government’s refusal to release Rs 327 crore received from the centre for this purpose more than three months back, even as it said the situation had become alarming with dalit students protesting against this injustice across the State.
In a statement here, former chief parliamentary secretary and Adampur legislator Pawan Kumar Teenu said even as one lakh SC students out of a total of 3.15 lakh students had been denied admission into private colleges across the State, those who had been granted admission were being forced to pay the fee from their own pocket. He said this was being done despite a circular from the union social justice and empowerment ministry to the Punjab government asking it to tell all institutions to extend date for depositing fee of all SC students till scholarship amount is transferred into their account. “Despite such instructions SC students are being forced to pay their fee because the Congress government has neither issued any strict instructions in this regard to colleges nor released Rs 323 crore lying with it”, Mr Teenu added.
Stating that Welfare of Scheduled Castes minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot was directly responsible for this state for affairs, the Akali leader said the minister should come clean and explain why he had allowed money meant for SC scholarship to be misused for other purposes. He said earlier also in 2017 the centre had released Rs 117 crore to the State for the SC scholarship scheme. “The social justice ministry has been constantly asking the Punjab government to submit utilization certificates and become eligible for more funds under this scheme, but the State government is refusing to do this. This gross discrimination shows the Congress party does not have any concern for dalits and even befooled them to get their votes in the last assembly elections by promising a hefty increase in all social welfare benefits”.
Mr Teenu also asked the Congress SC Welfare minister to submit a complete report of auditing of private colleges done by his ministry to the centre as this was also coming in the way of releasing funds to the State. “Dharamsot has announced that private colleges misappropriated Rs 500 crore but failed to submit a detailed report in this regard to either the centre or the Vidhan Sabha. He should do this immediately and even recover these dues and give the same to the dalit students”.
The SAD leader demanded a high level inquiry into the working of the Welfare of SC ministry, saying SC students, especially girls, were on the roads protesting against the injustice being inflicted on them but the Congress government was not doing anything to mitigate their problems. He also urged the union social justice ministry to direct the State government to release funds received by it immediately and also create mechanism to release the same directly into beneficiary accounts from the union ministry itself without any involvement of the Punjab government.