Hyderabad: An inordinate delay on part of the Andhra Pradesh government in releasing scholarships has forced thousands of post-matric students staying at Departmental Hostels to go without two square meals a day.
The state has not released Rs 2,000 crore towards the post-matric scholarships for intermediate, degree and post- graduate students living in student-managed hostels (now re-christened Departmental Hostels) under the social welfare department, sources said.
On an average, there are four Departmental Hostels in each of the 23 districts in the state with student strength ranging from 70-100 in each of them.
Besides incurring expenses on their food bill, the students are also required to cough money from their scholarship for paying salaries to cooks, watchmen and other staff of the hostels as the government pays only the building rent.
Though the government released about Rs 1,800 crore in the third quarter of this financial year, it was sufficient only to clear dues pertaining to the previous financial year, highly-placed government sources said.
With the current financial year coming to close and eight months already been passed in the ongoing academic year, the government is yet to release the scholarships, they said.
Along with 70 other students, Pragna (name changed on request) a second year degree student staying in a Departmental Hostel at Sangareddy, about 60 km from Hyderabad is making do with a single meal a day for the last couple of months.
"How can we buy rice, provisions and vegetables without money? We are pooling in what little money we are able to get from our parents and ensuring that we have at least one meal a day," she said, adding that not all students were lucky to draw money from their homes as they came from impoverished families.
There are three student-managed hostels in Medak, the home district of Deputy Chief Minister C Damodar Rajanarasimha and two of his ministerial colleagues, with a total strength of about 250.
Students in Krishna district are slightly better off as compared to their counterparts in Medak.
On learning about the hardship faced by the students due to non-payment of scholarships, Krishna district Collector S A M Rizvi directed the Social Welfare Department officials to take rice "as loan" from regular hostels (managed by the government) and supply it to student-managed hostels.
The Collector also arranged for supply of provisions and other essentials on credit from Vijayakrishna Super Bazaar, run by the Co-operative Department.
As and when the state government releases the scholarship arrears, the credit will be cleared, officials said. Meanwhile, officials in the Social Welfare Department here admitted that there has been a "problem" in releasing the scholarship amount.
"We have made all transactions online this year to ensure transparency. Online applications were received till December while the 'verification' process was completed only at the end of January. Hence the delay in payment," a top social welfare department official said, adding that the funds might be released in the next few days to clear all dues.
No comments:
Post a Comment