Fellowship to Kashmiri Students stops by MHRD
Future of 210 students at AMU under threat
Even as the issues with Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS) are yet to be resolved, Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has stopped the scholarship given by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to Kashmiri students at Aligarh Muslim University.
The situation has threatened the future of 210 students from the state who are currently pursuing various degrees at the prestigious university. “The scholarship was given to us in 2012-13 to pursue the studies,” said Saleem Jahangir, a final year student of BSc Mathematics at AMU. “They used to release payment in October but this time four months have passed and the scholarship is nowhere.”
The students are from poor background and in the absence of scholarship, it is becoming hard for them to sustain their studies. “Be it our tuition expenses or day to day overheads, the scholarship used to cover it all thus relieving our parents of huge burdens,” said Sheikh Umar who is pursuing BSc Biochemistry at AMU. “Now now we are in dire situation. The officials are not giving us any answers with regard to the scholarship release.”
The AICTE officials say that the scholarship amount is in the process of release but the students allege that the answer is just a ploy to pass time. “For the last three months they have been repeating the same lines, but till date they have not released even a single penny,” said Umar.
The students are completing their degrees in March and incase MHRD fails to release their scholarship till that time, the students would lose their right to claim the degree. The students are pursing various Bachelors and Masters degrees at AMU.
Jammu and Kashmir Aligarh Association, which is the largest association of students of Jammu and Kashmir studying at AMU, had put in strenuous efforts to create the scholarship in 2012. “We mobilized all of our resources and went to MHRD and Minority Commission to get this scholarship released for deserving Kashmiri students,” said Amood Gulzar, a Kashmiri graduate student at AMU who is also active in volunteer work. “It was a great success for Kashmiri students as 210 students from our state got the scholarship.”
Gulzar said that all the efforts are in the danger of going waste as MHRD is refusing to release the amount due to students. “We have been gearing up to demand another tranche of scholarship amounting to Rs 50 lakh, but if the current situation persists then we fear no more scholarship would be approved for Kashmiri students,” said Gulzar.
