BHUBANESWAR: At a time when the state government is sanctioning financial aid to bring more students into the higher education fold, scholarship applications of close to 900 poor students have been pending since the last two academic sessions due to administrative delay.
The Higher Education department provides three scholarships to students from poor socio-cultural and economic backgrounds - e-Medhabruti Scholarship, Vyasakabi Fakir Mohan Bhasabruti and Gopabandhu Sikhya Sahayata Yojana.
Under Gopabandhu Yojana, it gives financial assistance of Rs 20,000 per year to children of HIV/AIDS-affected parents, manual scavengers, single mothers, destitute, Particularly Vulnerable Tribes (PVTs), and families without shelters. The aid is for helping them pursue graduation and post-graduation in general and technical courses across public and private institutions in the state.
In a letter to all the collectors and district magistrates, the Higher Education department on Monday said a review of the implementation of the Gopabandhu Yojana showed a large number of scholarship applications pending disposal. According to reports, 899 scholarship applications for the academic years of 2021-22 and 2022-23 are pending at the district welfare officers level.
While 172 applications are pending for the year 2021-22, the number is 727 in the case of 2022-23 and none of these applications have been recommended, validated or forwarded to the department for disposal. Both the academic sessions are already over and the 2023-24 session has recently started.
“I waited for two months for the scholarship application to be validated after taking admission but when the money did not come, my father had to take a loan from a private moneylender to give the college fees,” said Sumanta Maharana, an applicant of SKCG Autonomous College in Parlakhemundi. His father is a local sanitation worker.
Applications from 20 districts are pending and Ganjam and Gajapati districts make up for the maximum number of cases. Ganjam has the highest number of pending applications - 73 in 2021-22 and 280 in 2022-23 - and Gajapati has 60 and 203 applications pending in the two respective academic sessions. The department has directed all the collectors to complete the validation of pending scholarship applications within a month and submit their reports.
PENDING APPLICATIONS FOR 2022-23
Ganjam - 280
Gajapati - 203
Bhadrak - 90
Cuttack - 54