An estimated four lakh Dalit students in the State, pursuing higher studies, will have to go without Central scholarship from this year if the latest norms of the Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment are to be followed.
As per the norms, those who are admitted to any course under the management quota or through spot admission will not be considered eligible for the post-matric scholarship scheme. This clause is an addition to the guidelines revised in April.
Last year, 8.75 lakh students belonging to Dalit communities and Scheduled Tribes were covered under the scholarship scheme. As per a general yardstick, 50% of the students come under the category of management quota, says an official overseeing the working of the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare department, which administers the scholarship scheme.
Same tuition fee
If any student becomes a beneficiary of the Central scholarship, the tuition fee that he or she has to pay gets reimbursed. For example, the tuition fee under the government quota for an engineering course is ₹50,000 to ₹55,000, whereas it is ₹85,000 to ₹87,000 under the management quota. But, through an order issued last year (which was subsequently challenged in the Madras High Court), the State government decided to do away with the distinction in the tuition fees between students of the government quota and those of the management quota and provide the latter what is being given to the former. In other words, a student, doing engineering under the management quota, will also get ₹50,000 to ₹55,000 as the scholarship amount.
M. Bharathan, an activist working in the area of education for Dalit students, says around 75% of the students is under the management quota as the proportion of students under the quota has gone up in the last five years. The reason is that private engineering colleges, while admitting Dalit students under the quota, agree to absorb hostel fees also within the tuition fee. The number of affected students is likely to go up as there is one more stipulation in the guidelines, which says that institutions will have to ensure minimum 50% renewal of the beneficiaries.
The arrear link
This norm is expected to create trouble for the Dalit students as the scholarship is ordinarily given only to those students, having arrear-free academic record.
A long-time observer of higher education points out that generally in the State, at least one-third of engineering students has arrears.
The guidelines of the Central government have come at a time when the State government is grappling with the increasing number of Dalit beneficiaries for the scholarship and the delay in the reimbursement from the Central government.
To cite an example of the increase in the number of beneficiaries, around 34,000 engineering students benefitted in 2011-2012 and the figure rose to about 1.25 lakh in 2016-17. Annually, the State requires ₹1,500 crore towards payments of the scholarship. Of this, the State’s commitment is around ₹330 crore while the rest should come from the Union government. For the last three years or so, as of now, the Centre has not yet reimbursed ₹1,800 crore to the State.
Mr. Bharathan wants the State to ignore the latest guidelines and extend the scholarship scheme, as mentioned through its order issued in January 2012, since which the distinction in the payment of scholarship amount was observed.
