Indian
Express: Pune: Monday, 01 September 2014.
Maharashtra
has the fifth highest Scheduled Caste population in the country, but when it
comes to education, only 4.8 per cent of the students belonging to the
community successfully complete their college. This, despite substantial sums
of money being allocated in both state and Central budgets to improve the level
of education among the community.
Documents
accessed by The Indian Express under the RTI Act, as well as the latest report
of the Comptroller and Accountant General (CAG), show various scholarships
schemes are riddled with lacunae, often leading to non-disbursement of the
scholarships.
Not
distributing the scholarships on time often causes hardships for students,
especially those in professional colleges. Though educational institutes are
not supposed to charge tuition and other fees from students belonging to SC and
other backward communities, the latter are often forced to pay up in the
absence of the scholarship money. In fact, the CAG has noted that in seven of
the nine districts they audited, educational institutes collected tuition fees worth
Rs 15.67 crore from 64,440 SC and other backward community students in
violation of the government’s orders.
In case of
Savitribai Phule Pune University, a major issue noted during the scrutiny by
the auditor general was the non-disbursement of scholarships. The AG, in its
recent audit, had pulled up the university for its failure to disburse Rs 27.21
lakh since 2009-10 to students.
“In addition to this, an excess advance of Rs
74,246 and scholarship received in 2009-10 amounting to Rs 20,11,215 was also
lying undisbursed and not refunded to the sanctioning authority even after a
lapse of three years,” the report read. Also, though scholarships are now
disbursed through an online system, Rs 12.57 lakh was still lying in the
account as of March 2014.
While
deserving students are deprived of scholarships in many cases, the CAG had
pulled up colleges in Pune, Latur and Solapur for distributing scholarships,
including maintenance allowance, tuition fee, examination fee and other fee to
students who were not supposed to get them. “An amount of Rs 9.46 lakh was
disbursed irregularly, to 27 students who were admitted through
institutional-level quota,” the report read.
Social
Welfare Commissioner Ranjitsingh Deol said efforts were being made to ensure
colleges and other institutions did not ask these students to pay fees. He said
steps had also been taken to reimburse the amounts paid by them. “We have taken
action against such colleges. The students would get back their fees, which
will be directly reimbursed to their accounts,” said Deol.
V Gargote,
Finance and Account Officer of the Savitribai Phule Pune University, said: “The
process of returning the undistributed scholarship amount is in process. There
was a delay due to the difference in manual and computerised system of
accounting in the treasury but that is being corrected. Very soon the entire amount
will be returned to the sanctioning authority.”
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