Chandigarh, July 25, 2019 (Yes Punjab News)
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today castigated the Congress government for discriminating against scheduled castes by not releasing grants to newlywed Dalit brides under the Aashirwad scheme and reducing fee grant under the SC Scholarship scheme.
In a statement here, former minister Gulzar Singh Ranike said as per reports as many as 33,678 newlywed brides were awaiting release of funds under the Aashirwad scheme which had been launched by the erstwhile SAD-BJP government led by S Parkash Singh Badal as Shagun scheme.
Condemning the Congress government and chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh for betraying the Dalit community twice over, the Akali leader said the CM had promised to increase the grant under the Aashirwad scheme to Rs 51,000 but had not done so till now. He said even the grant of Rs 21,000 was not being released to the beneficiaries. He said this was causing immense hardship to parents who had taken loans in expectation of receiving this grant from the government.
Mr Ranike also condemned the government for reducing fee scholarship under the SC scholarship scheme and said SC students were being harassed while taking admissions to private colleges. He said while earlier the government was paying the entire fee of various courses to private colleges as part of the SC Scholarship scheme, now it was paying only the fee charged by government colleges for the same courses to private colleges. The former minister said students were being forced to pay the additional fee immediately on admission failing which they were being denied admission.
Asking the chief minister to intervene personally in the matter, Mr Ranike said the entire fee of all courses should be paid to private college managements as was being done during SAD-BJP tenure. He said simultaneously college managements should be directly not to discriminate against SC students and not to force them to pay admission fee in advance as was being done presently.
He said privates colleges were making this demand because SC scholarship fee received from the centre had not been transferred to the colleges. He demanded that pending SC scholarship scheme dues be released to colleges immediately.
