A large number of scholarships being offered by Panjab University have been going begging each year owing to meagre amount being offered to students under such schemes.
Out of a total of 73 scholarships announced for students of different departments of the varsity, as many as 51 are offering students a minuscule amount between Rs 100 and 500. These scholarships have not been revised in years.
Some of the scholarships, which offer insignificant sum to students, include Dr SR Ranganathan Scholarship, Thakur Datta Sharma Scholarship, Kamla Gupta Memorial scholarships and Bishan Chand Mahajan Scholarship.
Criticising the varsity for humiliating students by offering such petty scholarships, Avish Sharma, a student of University Institute of Applied Management Sciences, said what good would a scholarship of Rs 100 or Rs 150 do for a student? "Such scholarships fail to attract students. They should be either revised or discontinued," he said.
To avail these scholarships, students are made to undergo a tedious and time-consuming process. Lovneet Thakur, a second year student, and university in-charge of Students Federation of India, said students had to get recommendation and signatures of various authorities even to avail such scholarships.
"Why will a student take so much pain for an amount like Rs 100," said Thakur. He lashed out at authorites for wasting money on unnecessary things such as constant beautification work on campus, while ignoring the needs of students from economically weaker background.
{{/usCountry}}"Why will a student take so much pain for an amount like Rs 100," said Thakur. He lashed out at authorites for wasting money on unnecessary things such as constant beautification work on campus, while ignoring the needs of students from economically weaker background.
{{/usCountry}}When contacted, Vikram Nayyar, university finance and development officer (FDO), said a majority of scholarships were instituted by families in the memory of their loved ones. He further said the university had written to the families to revise the amount of the scholarships, but they had not received a response. The varsity even contemplated on enhancing the amount from its own funds, but things did not materialise.
Dr Gurmeet Singh, a senator and faculty member of Hindi department, has been raising the issue about enhancing the scholarship amount. "The university should find a way to increase the amount of such stipends, else continuing with them will be of no use," said the senator, who is of the opinion that the varsity should fix a limit considering the need of students.