E-Paper
High court pulls up state government over scholarship money in Sinhgad Institutes case
Until, the process is streamlined and the loopholes are filled, the court directed the social welfare department not to deposit any scholarship money into the students’ accounts under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme.
The Bombay high court criticised the state government’s social welfare department for jeopardising the careers of young students through the confusion created due to the problems in the payment transfer mechanism and the delay in the scholarship deposit issue in the Sinhgad Institutes case, on the Monday.
“It appears that the policy of the state government initially was to credit the amount of scholarship in the account of colleges concerned. However, noticing that there was a scam in which bogus students were also enrolled, thereby resulting in a huge loss to public exchequer, the government came up with a policy of crediting the scholarship amount directly into the accounts of the beneficiary students. However, initially, though the state government prescribed a timetable to make the payment within a particular period, it did not stick to the said timetable,” read the court report.
A division bench, consisting justice Bhushan Gavai and justice Bharti Dangre, during the court session directed social welfare department to introduce a rational mechanism ensuring that the tuition fees go the colleges, and the examination fees and maintenance allowance remain with the students. Until, the process is streamlined and the loopholes are filled, the court directed the social welfare department not to deposit any scholarship money into the students’ accounts under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme.
“It is to be noted that it is only on account of the policy of the State Government that the candidates belonging to reserved category are admitted in institutions on the assurance that the fees of such students will be reimbursed by the State Government. The State Government cannot be permitted to put the institutions in a difficult situation on account of the policies of the State Government or because of erroneous implementation thereof,” said the bench.
Initially the scheme involved crediting the entire money into the students’ account, who were expected to pay the fees to the colleges. However, in some cases, students failed to deposit the fees after have withdrawn the money leading the DBT process into one year of delay. Only 30 per cent of the students had deposited the money.
