J&K toppers made to suffer for glitches in govt scheme
Private colleges want to grab their grants and institutes across India, ‘unaware’ of PM’s Special Scheme, are turning away scholarship holders
The Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS) for Jammu and Kashmir, launched in 2011 to help bright students from the troubled state go for higher education to peaceful zones across the country, seems to have done them more harm than good.
Azra Hamid, Priya Chib, Khan Junaid Ul Islam, Kanchan Bala and hundreds of other students stand to lose an academic year – all because of the government’s failure to properly implement the PMSSS.
For the first three years after the scheme was launched, hundreds of private universities reached out to the students allegedly to grab their grants (awarded for various categories and ranging from `1.3 lakh to `4 lakh per student). Many of these universities were only interested in money and did not offer quality education. By 2014-15, however, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which implements PMSSS, decided to grant provisional admission to the students through its own counselling, keeping private universities out of the scheme.
Things went further downhill from there.
Azra Hamid, who belongs to Kulgam, scored 97.6% in Class 12, securing third position in the entire state. Though she got admission to the Women’s College, Anantnag, Hamid applied for PMSSS, hoping for better opportunities. Much to her joy, after the AICTE counselling held in Srinagar, she was told that she was eligible for admission to the Vijayanagara Institute of Medical Sciences, Bellary, Karnataka. “I cancelled my admission in Anantnag and went to Bellary, where I was denied admission. So far, there has been no response to my complaint letter (see story below) to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). If I don’t get admission to a good college this year, I will lose an academic year,” says Hamid.
Priya Chib, who scored 94% marks in Class 12, was contacted by an NGO which directed her to seek admission in the Azamgarh Dental College and Hospital under the scholarship scheme. “Once in Azamgarh, I was told that the AICTE would conduct counselling sessions and allot provisional admissions. I came back to Srinagar, went for counselling and was allotted Maitreyi College. Once there, however, the authorities refused to honour the AICTE letter saying that they were not aware of any such scheme,” says Chib.
More than one hundred students who were asked to join Delhi University (DU) colleges complain that they received no help despite making the effort to travel to Delhi from J&K, staying in the Capital for almost 15 to 20 days (some even seeking shelter in gurdwaras as they had no money) and doing the rounds of the offices of the DU vicechancellor, University Grants Commission and AICTE.