Social Justice dept disburses pending dues of scholarship
By Vikas Vaidya
Maharashtra’s Social Justice Department has cleared almost 90 per cent pending dues of scholarship to be disbursed against the fees charged to students of Scheduled Caste category who study higher education in the entire state. The dues were pending for the year 2016-17 and 2017-18. ‘The Hitavada’ has been raising the issue since long constantly. The department distributed Rs 568.39 crore against 2,55,272 students of the year 2017-18 in Maharashtra
Rajkumar Badole, Maharashtra Minister for Social Justice told ‘The Hitavada’, “The scholarship amount was pending for various technical reasons. Secondly, colleges too did not submit the applications. Unless we get applications from colleges, we become helpless when it comes to distributing the scholarship amount.”
The colleges are facing the issue of scholarship distribution for the last three years. To add to the woes of colleges, Government brought Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. Since colleges did not see any ray of hope, they knocked the door of Court that in turn came up with the solution. Government too declared the action plan for the distribution. Social Justice Department too followed-up the issue.
There were 1,39,681 applications submitted in the year 2017-18 by colleges and the Department immediately cleared the amount of Rs 319.87 crore against those applications. This year the department received 1,15591 applications from the colleges and the amount disbursed against those many applications is Rs 248.52 crore.
The maximum dues have been during the current regime of Fadnavis Government. In 2014-15, the department received only 68,474 applications. The number of applications the department received increased to 1,39,681 that is creditable, said one official from the department. The regular follow-up by the department bore fruits and it received 5,31,622 applications from colleges. Government disbursed amount of 1,095.52 crore.
Badole said, “We had to streamline the system which was running with so many loopholes. I do not want to comment about what has happened earlier but now we brought the system on track. If one has a look at the statistics of each year, one would realise how much work we had to do.”
The colleges too are lethargic as far as submitting the applications of students is concerned. This year also the department has received fewer applications. It is awaiting over 70,000 applications of the students from the colleges that are of the year 2017-18.
3.5 lakh students to receive scholarship in 2018-19
The Social Justice Department got Rs 1,053 crore for disbursing the scholarship for the year 2018-19. This amount is meant for the fees of 3.5 lakh students of SC category. Central Government gave Rs 504 crore, State Government too gave its share of Rs 323 crore. The department received Rs 226 crore from District Planning Committee (DPC).
Social Justice department takes care of SC students only
To avoid confusion, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has divided various reserved categories between two departments. The Social Justice Department looks after SC category students. Many times people hold Social Justice Department responsible for the issues of students of other categories too, which is wrong, regretted Rajkumar Badole, Social Justice Minister.
Comments
Post a Comment